As he hoisted himself onto the roof, it settled under his weight with a metallic “thoing.” When he tried to stand, his decision not to enter the marsh was almost taken from him when the hard sole of his shoe slid from under him, causing his foot to skitter across the smooth surface. Dropping into a squat he crab-crawled across the roof, cautiously slid down the rear window and finally made his way over to the embankment.
Once on solid ground, he looked out over the marsh and realized he was lucky. Had the rainfall been normal over the past few months the trunk of his car would have been underwater. The other car was axle deep in the marsh.
At one time it could have been burnished gold but rust had eaten away paint and metal leaving the true color a mystery. It was an old model, late 60’s or early 70’s, a Buick or a Mercury, it was difficult to tell. Resting in the murk, it resembled a mighty beast that had traveled across a great distance and come here to die. The driver’s door was slightly ajar. For some reason, the four inch gap of space contradicted the abandoned atmosphere of the vehicle.
Nathan stood two inches from where the edge of the slope met the murk, his eyes transfixed by that damn gap. It was just an abandoned car. From the look of it, it had been there for quite awhile. He glanced away, looked up the bank. He had time. It would take the wrecker a good twenty minutes to come from town, knowing Stan probably longer.
The fact he had just crawled across the top of his vehicle to avoid the very thing he was now contemplating was not lost on him. The toes of his black shoes lifted as if resisting the thought. Taking a deep breath he stepped into the marsh.
The sludge was warm. He took another step closer to the vehicle and called out: “If someone is in the vehicle, please exit the vehicle. If you are incapable of movement please indicate so now!” He felt like an idiot. It was just an abandoned car—and yet his nerves were taut and his heart was racing, pumped up on adrenaline and fear. He took another step. He was up to his shins in the sludge.
Particles that looked like creamed spinach were hanging on his pants and his shoes were filled with mud. He slid his feet along the bottom in an attempt to keep the mud from sucking off his shoes. Once he was close enough to the car, he leaned against the rear door and peered inside.
The car was empty. (Of course it’s empty you idiot. It’s abandoned.) He opened the driver door and stuck his head into the vehicle. The interior was thick with the smell of mildew, the air difficult to breathe. The seats were ringed with fuzzy growth and the watermark across the seat proved Nathan’s earlier thought correct. A couple months back, this car had been partially submerged.
He was about to withdraw from the car when he saw something in one of the mildew rings. Reaching out, he gingerly plucked a tiny cube of blue glass off the seat. He held it up and looked at the windshield. There was a bullet hole in the middle of the glass. Kneeling on the water-stained seat he brought his index finger to the hole and gently probed the glass. Curiosity piqued, he looked around to see if any other shots had been fired. There was a single hole in the passenger window and four holes in the roof of the car. The locations of the holes were puzzling. The shots looked as if they had been fired from inside the car. He slid all the way into the car and sat behind the steering wheel. He unclipped his gun, leaned back and aimed it at the different holes. The driver would almost have to have been under the steering column to accomplish two of the shots.
In his mind he tried to recreate the sequence of events. Obviously the shots fired from under the steering column had happened after the car had come to a stop. Maybe the driver had dropped the gun when the car went over the embankment. The front end of the car would have been sinking into the marsh. Whatever had scared the driver was still a threat, in panic he would have reached down grabbed the gun, turned and fired.
At this point, water was probably coming across the floorboards. He would have scrambled to get the hell out of the car because he wouldn’t know how deep the water was and if the whole thing was going to go under. “And in his hurry he would have left his belongings, thinking he could come back later.”
Nathan glanced into the backseat. A black duffel bag covered with a fuzzy layer of mildew sat on the seat. A self-satisfied smile stole across his lips. “When you’re good you’re good.” He reached over the seat and grabbed the straps. “You’re not much of a witness but maybe you’ve got a few clues for me.”
The bag barely shifted. He holstered his gun, leaned over the seat and pulled at the bag again this time with both hands. When the bag came up, a quick moving shadow that looked like an oil spill slithered across the rear seat. He jerked back, almost dropped the bag and swore beneath his breath. “Jesus Christ, I don’t need this shit.”
Hoisting the bag over the seat, he stepped down into the marsh. Air bubbled to the surface releasing a foul odor. Struggling with the added weight of the bag he slid his feet along the slippery bottom until he was close enough to toss the bag onto the bank.
The hovering mist reminded him he had not set any flares. Stan wouldn’t know where to stop. Walking past the bag he withdrew a key from his pocket, looked at it and then at the wrecked squad car with doubt. With a shrug he slid the key into the lock. To his surprise, the trunk popped open.
Inside, an assortment of police issue paraphernalia were placed neatly in boxes marked with their contents. He opened a box marked ‘Roadside’, pulled out several flares, and climbed the embankment. The flares hissed to life casting a ghostly glow against the thinning mist. From the edge of the embankment the outline of the squad car was now visible. As he stood there he got the sense he was being watched. He thought of the dark figure coming out of nowhere, a grinning face inches from his window.
Once again the idea Nute had been laying in wait for him went through his mind. Why? What sense did it make? He peered into the mist certain someone was still lurking in the marsh. “Oh to hell with it.” He unclipped his holster for the second time that morning, which was two more times than he had in the past six months, and started back down the embankment.
He was halfway down, when he heard the hum of tires on the road. From where he stood, he could see the duffle bag sitting near the edge of the water, forgotten in his haste to light the flares. A slight movement from the other side of the wrecked cars caught his attention. He pulled his gun from the holster and pointed it toward the illusive figure. Feeling slightly ridiculous, he yelled, “Freeze!”
Someone was definitely there, but instead of freezing the shadow moved deeper into the marsh. He caught site of a large black shoulder but then the figure was gone. A sarcastic voice yelled from the top of the embankment, “Please don’t shoot me, I surrender.” Daniel appeared at the edge of the embankment with his hands held in the air.
Still holding his gun, Nathan turned it on Daniel.
“Well, if the gun doesn’t scare them off, your appearance should do the trick.”
Nathan lowered the gun and looked down. A coffee stain marked him from his shirt down to his crotch, giving the appearance he had pissed himself. His shoes were oozing with mud and his uniform pants were wet almost to the knees. “No one likes a smart ass, Daniel.”
Daniel’s taunt was immediate and expected. “Better a smart ass than a dumb ass.”
Taking a few steps up the slope, Nathan asked, “Where’s Stan?”
Daniel hooked a thumb behind him in the general direction of town. “He’s right behind me. Had to get him out of bed, that’s what took so long. Course, I don’t blame him for sleeping in, you should have seen the red-head who answered the door.”
The light banter was calming for Nathan; whatever had happened in the marsh didn’t seem real. Still, when he heard the engine of Stan’s wrecker coming down River Road he felt himself relax even more. He gestured down the slope. “Come here, I want to show you something.”
Daniel followed him to the car, noticing for the first time the squad car was lying across another car at the bottom of the embankment. “Holy shit, you hit this son-
of-a-bitch?” Daniel rapped on the trunk of the Mercury. His hand made a solid thud. “These old cars are solid metal. You’re lucky you didn’t do more damage.”
“Thanks, I’ll keep all that in mind next time I careen into something at the bottom of a ditch.”
Daniel toed the black duffel bag, sitting on the slope. “What’s this?”
Nathan looked over. “Shit I forgot all about that. I was on my way back down to get it when I thought I caught sight of Nute hanging back in the fog.”
Squinting his eyes, Daniel appeared to search the fog covered marsh. “Nute?”
“Yeah,” Nathan waved it off. “I’ve been chasing shadows all morning.”
Daniel looked down at the bag. “You haven’t opened it yet? Could be a bomb.”
The words were spoken with a straight face but Nathan didn’t acknowledge them. “I imagine the worst that’s in there is a bunch of snakes.”
Familiar with Nathan’s fear, Daniel grinned. “Snakes?”
“Yeah, one slid across the back seat when I took it out.”
Still grinning, Daniel said, “Hell, sweetheart, you’re having a dandy morning. You gonna open it?”
Nathan looked down, thought about the snake and said, “No, you go ahead.”
Daniel, his hand on the zipper, said, “One last chance, finders’ keepers.”
“Just open it.”
Daniel pulled open the zipper, jerked back as if burned and fell on his ass.
Nathan jumped back expecting a swarm of snakes to come flowing out of the bag.
Daniel laughed.
“Asshole.”
Wiping his eyes, he said, “I’m not laughing at you, Jesus H. Christ, look in the bag.”
Nathan tentatively approached the bag and looked inside. “Holy mother of God.” He squatted down, reached inside and pulled out a damp package of one hundred-dollar bills. The bag was full of them.
Daniel reached past Nathan and grabbed two packets from the bag. “Let me just touch ’em.” He rubbed them across his face, groaning in ecstasy.
Shaking his head, Nathan asked, “How much do you think is in there?
Daniel grinned. “Enough to make two men very happy.”
There was a hot gleam in Daniel’s eyes and Nathan understood immediately what he was implying. They could split the money straight down the middle and no one would know anything. Except the owner of the car. But he’s dead isn’t he, Nathan? You don’t need a body to know that. No one fires six rounds into thin air and leaves a duffel bag full of cash in an abandoned car. Take the money. You found it, it’s yours. Finders’ keepers, remember?
Daniel didn’t say a word. He held the two packets of $100s, one in each hand, a feverish gleam still in his eyes. This was their moment. Nathan could decide both of their futures with a simple yes. He was still staring at the money trying to decide which way his life was going to go when he heard a deep voice say, “Holy shit, look at all that money!”
Stan, the driver of the wrecker, was standing slightly above them on the slope, his brown hair sticking up in tuffs, his shirt hanging out of a pair of dirty jeans and his mouth was hanging wide open in disbelief. The moment had passed. Nathan dropped his packet back into the bag.
The last tendrils of fog danced and swirled around them, an alluring illusion—a flirtatious woman flicking her skirt, flashing a bit of thigh—but in the end simply a tease offering no promises. The rain was not coming. Above them, the sun burned through the remaining mist, climbed higher into the sky, and reclaimed its place of honor over the town of Reserve.
Chapter Three
Junction, Texas
Luke didn’t come back.
The first few minutes were the longest of Barry’s young life. Afraid to hope, he stood sentinel at the opening of the drainage pipe, unaware he was holding his breath until his lungs started to burn and he had to gasp for air.
Luke had called back only once, his voice muffled by his own body and distorted by the acoustics of the pipe. What they heard was, “I shee someting… I wink it’s uh… white.” Jar and Suzy had exchanged confused looks. Barry, his face still smeared with dried mud and sweat leaned into the pipe and yelled. “It’s the ball, grab it!” Sensing his friends’ eyes on him, he repeated what he heard. “I see something, I think it’s white.”
Excited, Barry backed away from the hole, expecting Luke to come scrambling out with the ball clutched in his hands. The only sound that came out of the pipe was a low groan. It wasn’t loud enough to be a scream, it wasn’t clear enough to be certain it was anything. But what followed was worse; clear, uninterrupted silence.
Desperate, Barry said, “Let’s give him a few more minutes.” The silence continued. It did not waver while Jar ran up the embankment and flagged down a car. It did not waver while they waited for the first emergency vehicle to arrive. The silence, like the heat, remained constant as night descended on Junction.
Jar, Barry and Suzy sat under the bridge in a splash of light coming from one of the spotlights above them. Exhausted, they watched as the paramedics and the fire department tried unsuccessfully to find their friend Luke.
The drainage pipe was designed to carry overflow from the Llano River to a low area nearly a quarter of a mile away, which provided more than 1,320 feet of pipe where Luke Casteel might be stuck. The Junction fire department didn’t have enough cable to probe the entire length. Emergency phone calls had been made and a sewage company clear over in San Antonio was sending a crew with a robotic camera and enough cable to root through from one end to the other.
Five adults stood in a small cluster. At first glance, there was nothing overtly remarkable about any of them. Beth Riley, Jar’s mother, wore a waitress uniform and a look of pained fatigue across what once had been a very pretty face. She stood closest to Mrs. Casteel and spoke to her in soothing tones.
Murphy Jobes, Suzy’s father, wore nearly two weeks worth of stubble, and had just come from Faces, the local bar. If he still had a license to drive, (which he didn’t) he would have blown over the legal limit at 10:00 a.m. that morning. He stood beside Mr. Casteel and discussed the Texas football season in a slurred voice.
Of the five, Griffin Tanner would have drawn the eye, not only because of how he looked and dressed, but because there was a certain intensity about the man that demanded a second glance. He had been the last to arrive and stood outside the circle. Behind them, the gaping hole of the drainage pipe remained dark and motionless.
Griffin Tanner’s presence drew Jar’s attention. In all the time he had known Barry, he had never seen his mother and Griffin Tanner standing in close proximity. Tanner had never been to the small trailer on 15th Street to drop off or pick up his son. Jar looked over at his mother. She stood farthest from Tanner and even then she was angled so she was slightly turned away. If she could have transformed herself at will into a brick wall she would have. He didn’t know what bad blood existed between her and Griffin Tanner but he knew if she’d had her way he and Barry would not be friends.
Jar noticed an obvious detail he had missed for years: There was only one parent for each of them. He, Suzy and Barry had each lost a parent. As if sensing Jar’s eyes, Griffin Tanner glanced over in his direction. Before Jar could look away, their eyes locked together.
A jolt of fear passed through him as Tanner’s intense eyes pierced him—he felt like every secret he’d ever had was being scanned by those golden orbs. By the time he broke eye contact with Tanner (and he was definitely the one who broke eye contact) he felt as if he’d been weighed, measured, probed, found lacking and cast aside. He was certain nothing could be more unnerving until he saw Tanner’s gaze drift and settle on his mother with the same intensity.
Before Jar had a chance to evaluate Griffin Tanner’s interest in his mother, Junction’s Chief of police, Horace Buckner, crossed the 2x4s laid across the mud and approached Jar, Suzy and Barry. He stood over them, his large girth silhouetted by the spotlight above and rubbed his hand along the stu
bble under his chin like a worried actor trying to get his lines right.
He cast a look toward the mayor and several councilmen who had joined the growing crowd at Flatrock Bridge, cleared his throat and said in a gruff voice intended to intimidate, “Let’s cut to the chase here kids. We all know the Casteel kid has a reputation for playing pranks. Now, I don’t think any of you want to be a party to costing the city tens of thousands of dollars on a rescue operation if Luke’s not really in the pipe.”
Jar wasn’t one to buck authority, he’d been raised to say yes Ma’am and no Ma’am but he was exhausted, and he was afraid. He said, “We saw him crawl in the pipe.” As an afterthought he added, “Sir.”
Chief Buckner rocked back onto his heels, jotted something down in his notepad, and rocked forward again. The three of them had coined him, “Rocking Horace,” after the first interview. Jar waited through this motion until the Chief asked his next question.“And why’d he go in there again?”
They’d been over it. All of it. Jar fought back the urge to shout but he couldn’t keep the edge out of his voice. He said, “We told you. He went in after a baseball.”
Chief Buckner stopped his rocking motion and leaned over the kids casting his shadow over them all. “Now you see, that there don’t make sense to me. He goes in after a ball, maybe he crawls two feet, maybe four. He doesn’t find the ball. It’s dark. It’s dirty. And as tough as a boy may be, it’s a little scary in there. Why go to all that trouble when you can go to any Windixie and get a ball for a dollar ninety-five?”
Jar and Suzy exchanged a glance. The truth wasn’t for them to tell. Griffin Tanner stood within hearing distance and if he was going to find out about the missing Carlton Fisk ball, it would have to come from Barry.
Rocking Horace finished his thoughts on the situation. “You know what I think? I think this here is a case of the boy who cried wolf. Luke Casteel isn’t in that hole. The fire department hasn’t found doodah and it’ll be a cold day in hell before I let the county engineers come in here and tear down Flatrock Bridge looking for a boy who isn’t lost.”
The Drought Page 3