by Ed Lynskey
“How’s your bullet wound?”
“Just a scratch,” I replied, divvying up his box of .44 cartridges. “We do one junket around. If anything screwy pops up, we’ll stop and check it out.”
“My idea, too. Saddle up.”
The old marina faded to our rear. Stealth wasn’t a priority as much as traversing the rocky terrain without blowing out a kneecap or twisting an ankle. We skirted the drying mud flats. Mr. X now in Davy Jones’ locker floated up in my thoughts, but I just kept tramping over the stones and sticks. Our effort worked up an appetite, but we didn’t slacken our grueling pace until probing a ferny hummock.
“Can you picture what it’s like to live at Lake Charles?” I asked.
“After all this, no thanks. I’ll stick to the trailer park. Before the TVA built Lake Charles, the ridge runners had the monopoly. Now growing ganja has replaced distilling corn liquor as the main local commerce.”
“Two of the growers attacked us last night.”
“Exactly. Something else. Lake Charles belongs to Uncle Sam. A high roller—his name slips my mind—deeded it over to score a big tax break.”
“How do you know that?”
“The newspapers rolling off the presses interest me.”
“Since you’re so well read, will a corpse rot fast in the lake water?”
“The carp will eat Mr. X. He can’t follow us.”
“But his buddy sure can.”
Cobb flashed his .44 and a grin. “Bring it on. We’re ready.”
Doing this felt crazy, but I couldn’t think of a better way. Pulling back, we patrolled the higher ground, looking sharp for any cut jungle or terraced slopes, evidence of the pot farming and a clue pointing us to Edna. The sun had burned off the haze often veiling the hills and heated the morning into a Turkish bath.
Sweat patched our shirts as the lactic acid tightened my hamstrings. Completing a circuit of Lake Charles before sunset let us enjoy one of a few rests. An acute need was potable water. I’d brought no canteen and dealing with dehydration or heat exhaustion interrupted our quest to find Edna. First, I brought up last night.
“Cobb, what do you know about these people?”
“Most dealers that I know are mellow, but we’re knocking these yahoos out of the box. They crossed the line, and I ain’t having it.”
“Did they really grab Edna?”
“Must be. What else is there?”
“She fell in the lake and drowned.”
He jutted his jaw at me. “She always wore her lifejacket, and she didn’t drown.”
We resumed our trek and crossed several dry washes. Heat and bugs diverted my attention from hunger and thirst. An unexpected stroke of luck was running across a natural spring gurgling from the rock wall. Seeing it first, he pointed, and I nodded. We skated over the loose pebbles, fell on all fours, and scooped up the water in our cupped hands so icy cold it made my teeth ache. It slaked my thirst but not my mounting frustration.
“We couldn’t find our asses with a damn flashlight.”
His pupils shrank to hot beads. Anger was a rare emotion in him, but I saw plenty of it now. “Your negativity flat out sucks, you know, Brendan?”
“Hey, I’m just being realistic.”
“Think positive instead. We’ll get her and go home today.”
“Did you forget about last night’s dust up?”
“No, but give us my wife, and I’ve got no more gripes. What the dope growers do up is their shit, not mine.”
“Your ex-wife,” I corrected him.
“Not quite yet because I never signed the divorce papers.”
“Actually that’s good to hear.”
“We’ll work it out. You’ll see. Everybody will.”
“Sure you will.”
We saw the natural spring had allowed a homesteader to haul up the water probably in homemade cedar buckets. A dim trail through the grove of ancient black walnuts led us to a sunken rectangle that was lined with dry-fit river stones, the foundation to his house.
Cobb tipped his head at the spillage of stones on the end. “The chimney?”
“Most likely. They could probably erect one inside of a day.”
“Doing stonework isn’t brain surgery. We could finish it in a day, too.”
“Sure we could. Just a stroll in the sun.”
The glass shards littering the ground came from the broken flasks of Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound and Dr. Kilmer’s Female Remedy, the patent medicines women once took for menopause. Mostly alcohol, no wonder it left them feeling perkier. Tiger lilies and summer lilac blooming at the steps were a woman’s aesthetic touch. Living in the middle of nowhere, did the homesteader’s wife pine for female company? The regrets came up over my break up with Salem, and to be frank, I missed her. Or maybe I just missed the steady thing I thought we’d had going.
The house’s square footage looked spacious enough to raise a tribe, and I debated their fate. Uncle Sam had no qualms to grab up more parkland by kicking the families out of their native homes. Or had the TVA’s earth dam creating Lake Charles flooded out their place? Then my darker fears returning over Edna’s welfare almost crushed me. A sidelong glance at Cobb prompted me to take out my .44.
“Magnums are cool, huh?” he said.
Inspecting the high-power loads seated in my .44, I grunted in disgust.
He reacted. “I’m hearing more negativity. Self-defense is perfectly legal.”
“Slice and dice it any way you like, Cobb, but killing is still just killing.”
“Get off it. They pushed us into a corner, and it’s not our damn fault how it played out.”
I grunted again, still in disgust.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
What Cobb and I sought—marijuana shrubs—grew in lush abundance in the homesteader’s nearby cow lot. Resembling giant ragweeds, the pot plants with resinous, sticky buds and serrated leaves sucked up the water. That accounted for the sawed-off lengths of the white plastic piper. The pot growers had it in mind to pump the water from Lake Charles to irrigate their cash crop. For now, they toted the water in the 5-gallon buckets we saw. They’d camped in the lot’s northernmost corner. Smoking dope made them sick, given the Pepto-Bismol and Vicks Nyquil bottles strewn over the ground. I looked in vain under the laurel bushes for a gasoline-powered irrigation pump, and Cobb jiggled a propane tank used to heat a portable stove.
“Pops said the GIs in Korea heated their C-rations over the Claymore mines.”
“That was a ticklish operation,” I said, unsure if Mr. Kuzawa’s colorful war stories had much grounding in truth.
The charred stones formed an old fire ring. I gauged its cold ashes between my fingers. We arrived too late, but we rounded up more damning evidence. The cheesecloth bundles swaying from the tree limbs just out of reach had air cured the green pot cuttings.
“Come look at this.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. At every three paces, I saw the holes—ten in a row—dug in the rocky soil. “They yanked out the whole root bulb.”
“Sure, roast the roots to grind them up and smoke. How many growers?”
He counted the empty cans in the garbage pile. “Two men for two days cut and cured the bud before they moved on to the next ripe patch.”
“That gives us a chance to catch up. Tell you what. I’ll give them their props. This is a pretty slick operation.”
“It’s slicker yet. The pot raised on Uncle Sam’s land removes culpability.” He saw my blank face. “Uncle Sam as the property owner can’t very well arrest himself, can he?”
“No, but I can see one liability: the forest fires.”
He nodded. “August is our driest month.”
“I believe the fires are the work of a local arsonist.”
“Again it’s not brain surgery to do. You can tape several matches to a lit Marlboro and leave it smoldering under some dry twigs. They catch fire and you create enough fire to burn down the woods. The Marlboro butt left behind looks incons
picuous enough.”
The trick new to me, I wondered where he’d learned it.
* * *
An hour later, we rested on our haunches in the meager shadow cast by a pulpit-shaped rock. Our sweaty faces lined in weary frustration gave the score. After locating the first pot plants in the old cow lot, we searched without success near the lake and then further back in the woods.
“So, a local just tends a few illegal herbs,” I said.
“You’ll never convince me of it.” He tweaked his bandanna headband. “See how this logic tracks for you. The grower sows his secret plants back here. He cultivates them and harvests a bumper crop. So he peddles a few nickel bags in town and suddenly finds the buyers are beating a path to his door. He rakes in the profits he never dreamed of and sees a windfall. These boonies are chock full of these sunny meadows, so ramping up his operations is a cinch.”
“Why does he spread out planting the pot gardens?”
“Smaller plots lessen the risk the narcs will discover them. Dozens of dinky gardens might be growing in the outback.”
“Sounds like you’re on the right track.”
We resumed our search. Soon intersecting an old bush road and following it, we still looked in the wrong places. The ankle high ruts we tromped in commemorated the sweat equity of the earlier travelers coming this way. My steady plod let me drift off remembering Mr. Kuzawa’s tales of his logger days. My father last heard from in Alaska probably toiled for a timbering outfit now that the roughnecks had completed the big pipeline. Whenever I lit out for Valdez to see him, I’d take along a solid idea of what the loggers did for a paycheck.
Mr. Kuzawa recounted with awe the mule-drawn wagons and later the flatbed trucks hauling out the prime oak, hickory, and maple logs. The crosscut saw and broadax were the early loggers’ tools. An industrious worker earned a livable wage off timbering to sell the logs for railroad ties. In the late 1950s, chainsaws hit the market, and loggers cut down the trees near the ground. Up until then with their hand crosscut saws, the loggers felled the trees at waist level, leaving behind the dozens of high stomps that I now observed rotting around us.
I’d laid up big plans. The Fishbacks, father and son, would forge an unbeatable team where I envisioned us filing the papers to incorporate our family timber company. Maybe I’d keep the books, and Angus would recruit the logger crew. Later Cobb could fly up after we got the business rolling. He’d make a good supervisor and we’d be our own bosses. I gave us a better than fair shot to make it since the housing construction boom screamed out for wood. The pleasure to think about running such an outfit warmed me with deep satisfaction.
Slogging along as the wagon mules had done, I tramped behind Cobb. My boots rubbed the blisters on the soles of my feet as my adrenaline waned. I saw a cherry tree a black bear had mauled, and my hungry stomach kicked. Cobb stopped to mop his forehead with his bandana. Sweat soaked through the backs of our shirt fabric. I flopped down beside him.
“We can search in a thousand hidey-holes, and a thousand more will pop up. Sorry I took us on a wild goose chase. You had it right. We should’ve driven to get help in Yellow Snake.”
“We’ll get to Edna.” I paused. “Think positive as a great man once told me.”
At an anxious scan of our front, he frowned. “We can’t search in near enough real estate today.”
“We’ve gone too far to turn back.”
“I’m still game.” He pointed a finger. “This bush road must soon hit the state road.”
“That’s how the loggers’ work flow ran,” I said. “Flagging a truck on the state road might give us a lift back to my truck.”
He agreed and we set off again. One of us in each wheel rut, we moved two abreast. Our rhythmic pace focused my mind. Edna and her captors had to be near us. How did I know? I didn’t really, but I didn’t want to give up even a skosh of hope. Think positive: I liked that motto. Turning the corner in the bush road, we came upon the wood smoke. I sniffed at it again.
He gave me an excited look. “Is it the growers?”
“Got to be.”
The .44 appeared in his fist. “Creep in and overpower the bastards. Pick up Edna. Go on home. Drink PBR. Life is good.”
“Sounds like my kind of a plan.”
At thirty paces from the bush road, I spotted the bluish tendrils of smoke wafting through the cedar copse. He fanned off just to my right, and we prowled in closer, hunched behind the scraggly cedars, and spied on a campsite. The green-stick tripod held a black steel pot suspended on a chain over the campfire.
The army olive-drab ponchos fastened together created a pup tent. Wicker creel baskets, fishing rods, bait buckets, and hip waders sat by the pup tent. Two sleeping bags and a couple of quilts showed through the pup tent’s triangular opening. The sunlight slanting in also fell on a marine band radio.
“It’s just the two bubbas. You’ve got to like those odds.”
“Oh yeah.” I wiped the sweat from my palm creases and clutched to the .44 tighter.
“I see the new fishing rods, but the bubbas aren’t off fishing.”
“They’re off getting the ganja weed.” My gaze joined the deeper woods. “I wonder if Edna is with them.”
“Let’s see what we have here.”
The bright clearing we moved into had a deserted air. No weapons grabbed my notice. I tried to breathe normal and relax my muscles as I ambled over to the trash mound. Our bubbas were no alfresco chefs judging by the pork-and-beans cans, their main staple. It was a skaggy campsite.
“When will they return?” I asked Cobb.
“When they get hungry, and we’ll be ready—”
Whish!
From the corner of my eye, I saw the movement of a coppery blur breaking the humid air.
“Ugh!”
Cobb had groaned. Horror riveted my eyes on the four-feather fletching and the sleek carbon shaft to the hunting arrow pierced in the middle of his chest.
CHAPTER TWELVE
His knees buckled as his grin fell flat. Blood dark as iodine stained the entry point of the arrow shaft. His fingers clawed in a feeble effort to grab and yank it from his flatlining heart. I heard the air shushing out of his lungs. He screwed down his eyes as if imploring me to do something. But I felt paralyzed. The last emotion stamped on his graying rictus was complete shock. Rage grabbed my emotions.
My hand was already jerking behind, my fingers digging. The steel lump scraped free from my waistband carry. Swiveling, I chopped up the .44. Only then did I see the killer archer, a tall man. Snapping his eyes down at his crossbow, he fussed with it to notch the next arrow—mine. The bastard cursed at me.
My reflexes were automatic. My arms jacked out, aiming the .44. Its barking muzzle jetted a spurt of flame. The Magnum slug chiseled off a bite of the tree bark. I’d missed the bastard, but I had a better feel for the .44.
His mouth lagging, the archer backpedaled, frantic to raise the crossbow and plant his next arrow in my heart. I didn’t give him the chance. He tripped, and I bulled ahead. Scrambling to his knees, he howled, his eyes stretched in terror. Desperate in his last stand, he hurled the crossbow at me, and agile as a matador I dodged it.
Again, I fired the .44. Its retort filled my ears. This Magnum slug drilled him in the sternum. I cheered at seeing my bullet hole. He froze stiff, his glassy eyes on me, and then crumbled into a heap. My two insurance slugs gouged two more holes in his chest. His blood frothed at all three holes. The gun smoke burned my eyes, and I coughed. Bitter tears flowing out scalded my cheeks. My nose was running. I spat the snot and tears from my mouth.
“First Edna and now this shit.”
My knees gave way as I knelt to the ground. No pulse throbbed in Cobb’s jugular. Using the bandana he’d given me, I dried my eyes. It was a shitty way to die. My boy didn’t go gentle into any good night. But then who ever does? I was able to wrench out the fatal arrow slick with his blood and wiped off my hands on the bandana.
Sheer willp
ower curbed the tremors of panic buzzing in me. Break it down, I thought. Use logic. Don’t freak as you did after waking in the motel bed next to the corpse Ashleigh. What do I know? I’m alive. That’s good. Three men—Mr. X, this archer, and Cobb—lay dead. What comes next? My bruised head was a painful reminder I’d had my fill of dirty sheriffs, so I nixed that idea.
I glanced at the archer. Cobb might’ve recognized him but I didn’t. The archer’s pockets yielded a Case knife, but like Mr. X, he carried no wallet or personal ID. The criminals at Lake Charles liked break the law and keep their anonymity. The Case knife sailed into the cedars.
When I flipped him over, I recoiled. Cobb’s .44 Magnum load had stamped a hole in the dead archer’s chest, tore through his lung, and exited, chewing the flesh into raw mincemeat. I retched before slamming the crossbow into a tree. My inclination was to ditch the dead archer in Lake Charles, but I’d no boat handy. Worse yet, I saw no leads pointing me to Edna. After all this grief, I still had nothing positive to show for it.
Crouched by the campfire, I set a stick’s glowing hot end to a Marlboro, inhaled, and did some thinking. My trial rolled up the Thursday after next. What a scream. I’d dropped enough corpses back there to film a Jonestown documentary. I took a final drag before the cigarette butt landed with a hiss in the pot of water. Then I upturned it to extinguish the hissing coals. I saw no gain to spark a fire in the dry woods. Next, I tugged out the bedrolls from the pup tent with mixed results.
The pungent body odor gagged me, but a sealed fifth of a mid-shelf whiskey rolled out. Cool. I fiddled with the knobs on the marine band radio but only raised static. I dropped the radio on a flat rock and disabled it. Inspecting the fishing outfits confused me. Two fishing rods meant two bubbas, and I’d killed the archer, so, that left me with Bubba Two.
My heart drummed as I trudged over to Cobb. The .44 lifted from his beltline was my backup weapon. His Buck knife might be useful, too. It was three o’clock, and I had to find Bubba Two and get to Edna. I used the Buck knife to hack off the sassafras branches and while layering them over both casualties, I sensed Bubba Two was deployed behind a blow-down tree some twenty paces away. Fair was fair. I’d arrange springing my own ambush. Acting casual, I scoped the campsite one last time. My eyes teared at seeing where Cobb lay. I pivoted and left, hustling into the firs.