Ballistics

by D. W. Wilson

  So Jack watched that American car roll to a standstill opposite the school’s ringwire fence. His heart pounded out of control, which could have been the running, but with one final suck of breath he pushed himself upright and walked over, leaned into the chain-link. The Fairlane had murky windows and star-shaped stickers on the glass where normally you’d see the fifty states. Jack couldn’t make out the inside, save hints of motion, of rustling through luggage or blankets. Then the driver door clicked open and a guy stepped out—buzz cut, field coat flown open to show a dirty white T-shirt, camo-patterned pants, and a leather belt with a buckle the size of a deck of cards. In his hands: a dog-tag keychain that he whirled around and around his index finger.

  Hey, the guy said.

  Hey, Jack said.

  The guy took a bronze cigarette case from his chest pocket. He offered a smoke over but Jack declined.

  I’m Crib, the guy said. He had a square face with cheekbones that dropped off fast and a jaw that could have been on an action-movie poster. Older than Jack by half a dozen years—practically a man. Around his neck, instead of dog tags, he wore an iron crab brooch, like the astrological sign, as big as the lid of a tin can. He pulled his lighter from one of his chest pockets—a Zippo, Jack remembered, with an American eagle decaled on the flat side—and sparked a flame as long as a .308 round. Crib tweaked his eyebrows up as if surprised. Jack grinned.

  Jack, he said. Jack West. Where you from?

  The States, Crib said, and winked. He blew a line of smoke in the air. Trying to scrub up some action. You?

  Running, Jack said.

  Good habit.

  It’s for hunting.

  Crib puckered his lips around his cigarette, nodded as if considering what Jack had to say. Hunting—now there’s a pastime I enjoy.

  Crib smoked. Jack watched.

  Then Crib said: Know of any parties? and Jack told him about the only party he knew, at the derelict fort on Caribou Road, overlooking the water, where he’d been planning to creep off to himself, and Crib kept nodding, deep in thought as far as Jack could tell.

  Waterfront. My kinda place, he said. You going?

  I need to sneak out if I do.

  So sneak out! Crib said, tossing his hands into the air. Then he touched his forehead in a salute and about-faced and marched to his car. Jack watched, near to mesmerized. As Crib started the engine he lowered the window and hollered: Don’t get lost in the shuffle, now.

  I GOT TO INVERMERE in the early evening on Halloween night, more than a day after Jack encountered the American car. The lights were off, the door unlocked and the heat raging, but I may have been so cold even an arctic wind would’ve made me toasty. I dug the sketchbook from my rucksack so the damp clothes wouldn’t ruin the paper. There was no sign of Linnea, but she rarely came straight home after school, and I’d grown used to her hanging out with Jack. On the kitchen table, where I’d left money so she could keep fed over the days I spent in the mountains, a note was pinned beneath the salt shaker. It said only Back later Dad, which wasn’t exactly like her—she’s the angry, silent type—but nothing terribly suspicious. I was too tired, maybe, too complacent. I wonder, sometimes, how much shit I could have prevented if I never let myself go complacent, if I never let my caution lapse. Christ, you can’t be complacent in a combat zone.

  Looking back, the signs were right there for me to see, the irregularities. Small things set off my alerts—I can tell when things aren’t as I left them. It’s like looking over my own shoulder. I’ll notice a coat on a different hook, a chair tilted at a different angle from the table, the smell of cut grass even before I see an open kitchen window. That Halloween, Linnea had washed the dishes, made her bed, and hauled out the trash—had finished all the chores I’d be most likely to start expecting her home to do. She’d even spent a portion of the money on candy for the trick-or-treaters. Everything was in place, and I should have noticed that as being out of place. There was one other thing, too, which I still attribute to Jack West, because it is something like I’d do, something suitably boyish, suitably cunning. Of course I didn’t notice it in my fatigue. They counted on that.

  I WAS ASLEEP on the couch when Linnea barged through the door with enough noise to wake the unquiet dead. It was two-twenty-three, Halloween night. I’d passed out with a can of Kokanee on my chest, and it’d emptied to a dark V on my shirt, like a sweat stain. I sat up and rubbed my eyes with the heel of my palm.

  Dad, Linnea croaked, a desperate little whisper of a sound, a sound no man wants to hear his daughter make, and like that I was awake and aware and my feet were carrying me at a half-bolt out the living room and into the hallway. I found her leaning on the wall. The cabbagy stink of dope hung around her. All the lights were off and I could only see her outline: shoulders hunched and arms crossed over her chest as though shivering. I fumbled toward her and got the lights turned on. She had her hair loose in front of her face, hiding it. With my nearest hand I reached out and tucked the hair behind her ear. She winced—at my touch, out of pain?

  Who did this? I said, thinking, to my own shame: Jack West. Her cheek was turning blue at the edges of a circle—were those knuckle marks?—and she had finger-pad bruises up her neck, under her jaw, like she’d been groped, like some fuckhead had been feeling her up.

  Jack hit him, she said, squeezing back tears. She balled her hand to a fist, made a punching motion, hazarded a smile that tested the tenderness of her cheek. Jack hit him real hard.

  Who?

  The American, she said. Crib.

  What American? I said, and her eyes went wide—she’d kept something from me, and I’d caught her in the act. But it wasn’t the time or the place to give a lecture. Where’s Jack now?

  Crib beat him up, Dad—Jack ran away.

  Is he okay?

  I don’t know.

  I cupped her shoulders, lowered myself level with her. She didn’t want to look at me on account of her red eyes but I didn’t care if she’d been smoking a little dope—made me tolerant, that’s what Vietnam did. Are you hurt? I said, as gently as my idiot army voice could muster. Are you hurt … anywhere else?

  She shook her head. We stared at each other and I felt so small.

  You gotta go get Jack, she breathed.

  I’m not leaving you here.

  He hit him, Dad, she said, her voice breaking at last. He hit him for me.

  I pulled her to me, then, let her cry against my chest. I never should’ve stayed gone so long out of town; should have come back down, should have expected a Halloween party. She was that age.

  Linnea blubbered into my chest, told me I had to find Jack, that I had to, for her. If I loved her, she was saying, if I loved her I’d find Jack.

  I led her into the kitchen and did the only thing I could think to: I picked up the phone to call Nora. But the phone was dead—no dial tone, just the white plastic silence and a squeak from Linnea in the background. I looked from the receiver to the room and then to my daughter, who had her eyes cast to the floor. Without a word, she pointed to the telephone jack, the cord unplugged from the wall. Just in case Cecil tried to call; and a gamble, a real gamble, that I wouldn’t think to call him. Back later Dad, the note said, so I wouldn’t phone to see if she was there.

  Cecil, I said when he answered the phone, groggy. Put Nora on.

  The hell’s happening, he said, but passed the phone without a second thought.

  Archer? Nora said.

  Nora, Linnea’s hurt over here, and Jack’s gone.

  What do you mean gone?

  No, I said instantly. Not like that. He ran off.

  Where to?

  I can find him, but I can’t leave Linnea here.

  She breathed a slow breath, a calming breath. We’ll head over. Then, to Cecil: Get your fucking clothes on, man.

  I set the phone into its holster and pressed my forehead to the wall. Linnea wanted to wash off and I wanted a drink. She slipped past me, favouring her right leg maybe, and I
stared after her until she’d shut and locked the bathroom door. I poured myself whiskey and sat in the kitchen with only the draining, grease-caked bulb of my range hood to keep the place lit, and I listened to Linnea’s feet creak on the enamel tub. That’s how Nora and Cecil found me. She let herself right in. I had the whiskey under my nose, elbows on the table—portrait of a pensive man.

  Cecil had his hunting vest pulled over a plaid shirt, wore his blue ballcap and patched woodsman pants as if ready to track a buck. With her red hair frizzy and unkempt around her shoulders, Nora looked like a mother. She had one hand on Cecil’s back, right between the shoulder blades. Linnea’s in the shower, I said. You ready, old man?

  What happened? he said.

  There was a fight. Don’t know much else.

  Is Jack hurt? he said. He looked worried.

  I don’t know, Cecil.

  Right, then.

  I downed my drink and placed the glass on the counter and turned to follow Cecil out. Nora hadn’t moved, and my eyes caught hers. Thanks, I mouthed, and her fingers brushed my knuckles as I shifted past. Outside, Cecil climbed in his truck and motioned for me to do the same, but I didn’t head for passenger. He cracked his window.

  Well?

  I’ll take my truck, I said. Split up, check his hiding places.

  Oh.

  Take the park, check the playground. I’ll check the bridge.

  Cecil lifted his ballcap straight up, mopped a hand through his hair. He’s more likely to be at the park.

  That’s the point.

  What the hell does that mean?

  Better all round if you find him.

  Don’t give me one of your lectures, Cecil said.

  Trust me on this, I said.

  He screwed his mouth into a cringe. This isn’t the time.

  Playground, I told him again, and patted the side of his Dodge. With a curse he started her up and gunned down the street, and by the time he rounded the first bend he’d already torn a beer from the sixer under his seat. I let myself have one last look at my house, at the orange glow flickering from the kitchen and the small, frosted bathroom window. I’ll probably never know exactly what went down at that beach party, at that cursed fort, exactly what was done and said. But Jack sure made an impression on my daughter. He saved her, somehow.

  DURING THE MONTHS I’d been in Invermere, town council had erected a four-foot concrete barrier on each side of the road bridge, because of an oil tanker that careened off the edge when its clutch seized in third. People expected a bloody, fiery mess out of that one, but the driver crawled from the cab, doused in oil, while the engine hissed. He had to shower with dish detergent to wash himself clean. Traces of the spill remained on the tracks and the gravel—now stained gold—and the plant life, but the town couldn’t afford to mop it all up and didn’t really care to.

  With their backs to the barrier, kids could dangle their legs over the lip and share liquor and stay out of traffic’s eye. Between the barrier and the edge of the bridge, you had about four feet—enough room to walk comfortably in a line or for a young, hormonal male to test his chivalry alongside the girl who’d caught his eye. The tracks were a forty-foot drop, where deer moved in small groups among the trees. A man could survive that distance if he landed right, or if he was stubborn enough. A stubborn enough man can survive anything.

  I parked on the shoulder before the bridge and began to walk the length. On the wrong side of those barriers, on a dark night like that Halloween, you’d have to nearly trip on a person to find them. I didn’t want to run into Jack there, because that job belonged to Cecil. The old bastard liked to beat on his own chest, but he lost sleep over the raising of Jack. We may not go blow for blow when it comes to the details, but I’d be doing him a disservice if I said he didn’t try. It would’ve been nice if a daughter could’ve happened to him, but you know what they say about spilled milk. Cecil was the kind of man who planned against his mid-life crisis. He was the kind of man who you could trust with your house keys. If I had to face down the maw of Hell, I can think of only one person I’d rather have at my side.

  I went the length of the bridge without encountering Jack, crossed the road at the far end, and started back toward my truck. I gave it eighty-twenty odds that Jack had gone to the park—too much likelihood he’d run into a guy he knew at the bridge; when a kid has been humiliated, the last thing he wants is to meet up with his friends. Cecil’d have his father-son chat, maybe get in a bonding moment. Someday he’d thank me for it.

  Then, halfway to my truck, a figure materialized from the darkness in front of me—the shape of a boy, wiry, with one knee bent as a rest for his arm and the other draping over the edge. I jerked to a stop and my boots scraped the road and the kid bounded to his feet, way too fast to be a fourteen-year-old. He had his fists around his face, a boxer’s stance. I smelled beer, marijuana.

  Who the fuck are you? the kid said.

  I showed him my palms. Sorry.

  He shrugged, and lowered his guard. I saw that he had a beer can in one fist. He raised it to his mouth and chugged the last, flipped the can off the edge of the bridge. I counted three seconds before it clanged against the ground. I couldn’t be sure, given our distance and given the darkness, but the kid looked to be smiling. Littering, he said. No greater crime in this country.

  Where you from?

  Oregon, he said, stepping closer. Buzz cut, field coat, army ranks stitched to the breast. I could put two and two together—this was the American, Crib. Linnea didn’t actually say he’d felt her up, but what else could set Jack off? He may not have been the most well-mannered boy, but he didn’t waltz around throwing punches.

  You don’t sound Canadian, Crib said.

  A lot of people tell me that.

  Where you from, then?

  Here.

  Really! Crib said, and rested his hip against the barrier. He pursed his mouth. Not the nicest people in this town.

  We do okay.

  Look here, he said, and leaned in, head turned sideways, to show me a dark bruise on his cheekbone, right beside his nose. With his finger, he pulled his lip up over his teeth, wiggled a loose canine. Some idiot teenager almost knocked my tooth out.

  Imagine that.

  You don’t sound surprised.

  Locals don’t take well to city boys.

  The kid scratched his nose.

  I’m not a city boy, he said. His face bent to a smile, but not the friendly kind—more like a baring of fangs. He pulled a brass cigarette case from his chest pocket and lit up without offering one over. Around his neck hung the iron crab brooch. He blew smoke up and over his shoulder. Name’s Crib.

  Archer.

  He pushed away from the barrier, just over an arm’s reach away, a jerky, hostile motion like a boxer dipping for an uppercut. Then he went bone-straight.

  Now that is an interesting name, he said. He crossed one arm over his chest, brought the other up to his mouth, as if in contemplation. I can’t think of very many people named Archer. What’s your last name?

  West.

  His face had this ridiculous who knew look to it. He shrugged with his whole upper body, not just the shoulders. There’s a new one for the list, he said.

  I put my weight on the barrier, my hands in my pockets. What brings you here?

  Just looking for a place to drink some beer.

  I mean to the town.

  He winked. Business.

  Had you pegged as a cadet.

  Done officer training, he said, waving his cigarette around. Diplomacy, mostly. You don’t sound Canadian.

  They teach you accent location in diplomacy class?

  You might say I’ve got other training, too.

  Ever do much hand-to-hand? I said, very slowly.

  He ground the tip of his cigarette out on the concrete, flipped the butt off the ledge, and in a long breath let the last of the smoke go.

  That sounded vaguely threatening, he said.

  Then he s
hot forward, way faster than I’d expected. One strong fist latched onto the lapel of my shirt. He tugged, hard, and my head bobbed. I fumbled for the same grip, a fighting chance.

  He flashed his teeth, white as gold. I don’t like being threatened, he said.

  I squared my feet, grabbed his lapel, curled my wrist in to secure a grip on the field coat. My soldier’s grip, Cecil once called it. I could sense the strength in Crib’s arm, the patient, waiting muscles, the bicep seized like a windlass. He stunk of cigarettes and beer, and like a campfire, but I had no illusions—he wasn’t drunk.

  No one’s going to care if they find a dead American on the tracks, I said.

  Those a pair of dog tags around your neck?

  You bet.

  They look American made.

  All tags are the same.

  And here I had you pegged as a painter, he said, and, fast as before, his free hand shot into the folds of his coat, where you’d keep a pistol, and I made an awkward lunge for his elbow, wondered if anyone would hear the gun go off. He danced sideways, the two of us still attached fist-to-lapel, and then he drew a set of dog tags from some hidden, inside pocket.

  I got a pair, too, he said, dangling them in front of his face. He released me. I did the same.

  He sat down with his back to the barrier, draped one leg over the edge. From God knows where, and God knows when, he’d produced a hip flask. Well it sure was nice talking to you, he said, and took a big gulp. I’m gonna sit here and sober up.

  I only lingered a moment, not sure what to think, wanting to pound that brat to a pulp, to grab his grinning face and smash it on the concrete until all that remained was a red, wrecked jaw. As I moved up the bridge toward my truck, he hollered: Don’t get lost in the shuffle, now.

  CECIL’S TRUCK WASN’T out front when I rolled up to my house, so I figured he’d found Jack and taken him home to get clean. Light shone through the living-room windows, which meant Linnea and Nora were probably watching TV. I killed the ignition and put the truck in gear—backward slope—and hauled the e-brake tight. Then I sat listening to the engine cool down. Probably, I should have thrown Crib off the bridge.