The Drifter's Wheel

by Phillip DePoy

  “Hovis and Mr. Jackson?” Skid blinked. “I guess that would make a weird kind of sense. But you do know that there’s no gold—”

  “Look,” I said impatiently. “The focus of the moment is that Boy Jackson and Son Jackson are in there, I think, and we should go get them.”

  Skid looked around for a moment. “This is right near where I found the body.”

  “Yes.”

  “Huh.” He turned to the rest, who had assembled behind us. “All right. I would like for Melissa to be the only one with a gun in her hand. I’m beside her. Crawdad, you’re outside here, right at the cave entrance. Ted and Walter? You’re back at your car, third line.”

  They moved immediately.

  “Why is Melissa the only one—” Andrews began to ask me.

  “She’s the best shot,” Skidmore snapped. “And she’s got a reason.”

  Crawdad bobbed his head, but held up his hand. “Absolutely. Now, where is this cave entrance again?”

  It was impossible to see. The upward slope, under a few loblolly pines and rampant weeds, was covered with near-black ivy. The opening was completely camouflaged.

  “I’ll take you to it,” I volunteered.

  “And then you’ll wait out here with Crawdad,” Skid said quickly. “I mean it. If you get shot and fall down, you’ll really be in my way.”

  “I could wait in the truck,” Andrews suggested. “I’ve already had my turn at being shot.”

  Melissa laughed. Crawdad just stared.

  I was momentarily distracted from the task at hand by her laughter. It was like slow, clear water over round rocks—on a spring afternoon. Moonlight wasn’t strong enough at that moment to make out her face, but something in her laughter made me think that Andrews had somehow set things right with her.

  “Are you going to think about it some more,” Skidmore insisted impatiently, “or are you going to show me to this damn cave?”

  I headed immediately for the spot where I’d emerged from the cave. It was a bit more difficult to find, perfectly hidden. But in short order, there it was.

  Melissa drew her pistol and a flashlight at the same time, checked her gun once, and started into the cave; Skidmore looked once to Crawdad, pulled out his own light, and followed her. Andrews had not moved from his place beside the truck. I stood there next to Crawdad grinding my teeth.

  Andrews stared at me, the occasional noisy blast of air escaping his nostrils. He finally rolled his head, said something very rude under his breath, and came over to me. “Let’s go.” That was all.

  I turned to Crawdad. “I’m going in there.”

  “No,” he said very kindly. “Sheriff would have my head.”

  “Think how much madder he’d be,” Andrews explained reasonably, “if you shot Dr. Devilin yourself, right here. I’m guessing that’s the only way you’ll be able to keep him from going in. And, see, also: I have to go with him to keep him in line. I’m the only one who can do it. You see the predicament that you and I are in? It’s not our fault. It’s Dr. Devilin’s. He’s a very, very bad troublemaker.”

  “The thing is—” Crawdad began.

  But before he could finish I was already through the curtain of ivy, and Andrews was right behind.

  “Is that how he got here?” Andrews whispered. “How could he have used that to carry the body—”

  The rest of his question was stopped by the blinding light of Skidmore’s flashlight in his face.

  “Turn right around,” Skidmore whispered through clenched teeth. At that moment he was only the sheriff of a small mountain town, not anyone I knew: all business, no humor.

  I folded my hands in front of me like a pallbearer; a more solemn face than mine did not, at that instant, exist on earth.

  My demeanor conveyed my determination, it seemed. In the ambient light I could see Skidmore shake his head, then turn back to his task exploring the dark cave. He knew I would follow.

  Melissa was several feet ahead of Skidmore. I tried to stride quickly to tell him that the cave wasn’t very long, and that Melissa would come to the cavern room very shortly, but it was difficult because the light was ahead of me, not where I was walking. I had to feel my way along the cave walls and step lightly, afraid I might trip over something.

  Before I could reach Skidmore, it was apparent that his deputy had found her prize.

  “Please don’t move,” I heard her say sweetly, her voice echoing a bit as if she were down a well. “I already had to shoot somebody else this week, and I’d rather not—”

  A deafening explosion threatened to crack my eardrums, and I grabbed my temples. Skidmore dropped his flashlight. Andrews cursed.

  Someone had fired a gun.

  Twenty-eight

  The silence that followed the gunshot seemed louder than the noise of the blast. My ears were ringing. No one was moving. I thought my heart might break out of its rib cage.

  “Melissa?” Skid whispered desperately.

  I held my breath. Andrews was frozen. No answer came.

  “Boy Jackson!” Skidmore snarled at the top of his lungs, gun in hand. “This is the sheriff. You are under arrest. Put your gun down now and come here to me or I swear to God I will shoot you very dead.”

  More silence followed. I hadn’t noticed, but Crawdad and the other two deputies had come into the cave. There was a good bit of illumination from their flashlights, and they were whispering to each other frantically, but I couldn’t quite hear what they were saying.

  Skid walked backward to me without looking and began talking in a loud voice. “What’s that room like?” he demanded.

  “Small, lots of barrels, a table, some chairs, oil lamps—but look, there’s also the escape hatch into Hovis’s shack just above him. Someone should—”

  Crawdad was out of the cave and headed for Hovis’s front door before Skidmore even looked at him.

  “The man’s got a great advantage in there,” I continued. “There’s no way you can sneak in on him.”

  “But he can sneak out.” Skid sighed. “Ted, would you go on up behind Crawdad, back him up?”

  Ted shot out of the cave after Crawdad.

  “All right.” Skidmore got his bearings. “Walter, would you go call the hospital and get an ambulance to come on out here? No siren, tell them.”

  Walter vanished.

  “Seriously.” Skid offered me the sternest expression I’d ever seen him wear. “You two stay right here, and I mean—”

  Melissa appeared very suddenly from around the only bend in the cave. She looked like a shadowed specter in the light rising up from the cave floor where Skidmore had dropped his flashlight.

  “Um,” she offered sheepishly, “Sheriff? I think I just shot the dead man. The victim? And the killer, he might have gone up some sort of escape hatch—”

  Skidmore grabbed her and crushed her to his chest. She was momentarily at a loss, then returned his embrace with equal fervor. “God,” Skidmore whispered. “I thought I might have lost you.”

  “I see that.” Her voice was holy.

  In that moment I realized that all the gossip about Skidmore and Melissa, no matter how hyperbolic, may have had some genuine basis in reality.

  Their pose only lasted another second, and they were back to business.

  “What happened?” Skid asked, full-voiced.

  “You’ve got to come see this.” She picked up Skid’s flashlight and handed it to him.

  She sauntered back toward the cavern room; we followed.

  A single oil lamp was lit beside the body that was slumped over the table. It was dressed in a dirty army surplus coat, sported a pair of plaid cotton gloves, and gripped the pistol in one of its hands.

  “I think Melissa’s right,” I surmised at a distance. “That’s the victim.”

  “Why do you say that?” Skid stopped.

  “Gloves,” Melissa sighed.

  “Those ridiculous gloves are from the Deveroe boys. Something about the victim’s hands being
swollen.”

  “Remember Donny told us about that?” Melissa asked Skidmore.

  “They were going to fix it, he said.” Skidmore nodded.

  “I believe that the killer set up the body like this,” Melissa offered, a little too loudly, “to hold us off. It worked—looked like a man with a gun pointed right at me. I fired a warning shot, you know, like I’m supposed to, but the body fell over. I knew something was wrong then, you know, because I didn’t shoot the guy, and then I was afraid he had a heart attack or something. Anyway, so I looked around for a second and discovered that the killer probably got out that way.”

  She pointed to the trapdoor that led up to Hovis’s kitchen.

  “Damn it, I’m still having a hard time hearing,” Andrews growled, sticking his little fingers in his ears. “Is anybody else?”

  “I can’t hardly hear a thing,” Melissa agreed.

  “Is that why you didn’t answer me when I called out after you fired?” Skid asked.

  “You called out?” She shook her head.

  “Look, I’m the least qualified to ask anything of this sort,” Andrews whined, “but shouldn’t someone go after the murderer?”

  Skidmore and Melissa both turned to him.

  “You want to stick your head up that hole and see is he up there?” Skid asked. “I’ve got two people going up to the cabin and two more down here so he can’t escape this way again. We’re covered.”

  “Oh.” Andrews looked at me.

  “Should we … ?” I pointed at the corpse, taking a step toward it.

  “Leave that be,” Skid said quickly. “God knows what Millroy will say now. I’d just as soon not touch it until everything else is settled.”

  There was a sudden commotion above our heads near the hole in Hovis’s floor.

  “Sheriff?” Crawdad called. “You down there?”

  Skidmore shot to the place beneath the hole. “Did you get him?”

  “No, sir,” Crawdad answered. “Nobody here. Not even Hovis. You want to come on up?”

  “Damn and damn,” Skidmore mumbled, putting his gun back in his holster. “Come on.”

  Melissa put her gun away as well and was instantly at his side. Skid sized up the hole, looked around for a foothold, and worked his way upward. Melissa followed right behind.

  I was still trying to decide what to do when Andrews poked me in the arm.

  “Are all these barrels filled with that apple brandy?” His eyes were glistening; he was using his Church of England voice. “Every one.” I couldn’t help smiling.

  “What a wonderful country this is,” he intoned, rapture in every word.

  He went to examine one of the barrels with a reverence others would have reserved for the Grail.

  I stood foolishly still, thinking that if I didn’t say anything, the feeling of capturing the murderer would stay with me despite the fact that the murderer had actually gotten away—again.

  “Hey,” Andrews mumbled. “What’s this?”

  He leaned over one of the barrels, started to speak, then threw himself backward with a force so sudden he landed on his backside on the cave floor.

  “Christ!” he stammered.

  “What is it?” I started toward the place where he’d been. A gravel-whispering voice from behind stopped my forward motion.

  “He probably found a dead body.”

  I whirled around. The corpse that had been slumped over the table was now standing up and pointing his gun at me.

  “Don’t be too loud,” he warned, a bizarre calm settling over his words. “I don’t want to have to shoot everyone else.”

  Andrews made small involuntary noises that couldn’t quite manage to become words, and I squinted hard at the face for a full minute before my pulse slowed a bit.

  “Boy Jackson,” I sighed. “Currently wearing a dead man’s clothes—right down to the gloves.”

  “Dead body. Naked.” Andrews tried to grab on to coherency, but his grip was not firm enough.

  “Do you remember Red Jackson’s telling us that his entire clan had supernatural hearing?” I asked.

  “What?” Andrews seemed to think I’d lost my mind.

  “I heard you coming, moron,” Boy sneered. “Heard the whole caravan of cars.”

  “He heard the cars pull up outside.” I smiled at the man with the gun. “He traded clothes with the dead man, hid the body behind those barrels, and hoped for the best. It was the act of a lunatic, really.”

  “Worked out pretty good.” Boy began moving slowly around the table, coming toward me.

  “So far,” I cautioned him.

  “But,” Andrews stammered.

  “Dr. Andrews has had a difficult evening,” I explained to Boy.

  “It was such a desperate thing to do,” Andrews blurted out, finally rallying his cognition. “Anything could have happened.”

  “You forget that I don’t care,” Boy said. “I won’t be here much longer. What was the line? I don’t have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you.”

  Andrews, momentarily at a loss, suddenly seemed to remember the joke I’d told him.

  Had Boy Jackson heard that, too, earlier in the evening?

  “And the bear, in this case, is—?” Andrews began.

  “Time,” Boy explained. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to my real home.”

  “But why did you go and get the dead body of your brother?” Andrews began.

  “I’m through answering questions,” Boy said calmly.

  “If there’s no body,” I explained, “it’s harder to prove a murder.”

  Boy declined to agree or disagree; he only indicated that I was to get out of his way by shaking the gun at me. It was persuasive. I stood aside. Andrews remained seated. Boy simply strode past us, waving his pistol, and disappeared into the tunnel that he thought would lead to his stolen car, and escape.

  “Should we call out for Skidmore?” Andrews whispered.

  I bit my lip, glanced at the hole that led up to Hovis’s shack, and then abruptly started out the tunnel toward the escaping killer.

  “Wait,” Andrews said helplessly.

  “Come with me,” I whispered, moving faster, “or go get Skidmore.”

  Andrews began making his funny noises again.

  I broke into a run toward the cave entrance. I couldn’t hear anything ahead. I was trying to keep low, hoping I wouldn’t bump into anything jutting from the cave wall or ceiling. I had plunged into obsidian, but I knew that once I gained the entrance of the cave I’d be able to see again.

  A very few more steps brought me to vague light. The ivy was still quivering from Boy’s egress. I followed, crashing through it, hoping he’d still be right there and I’d catch him off guard, tackle him, save the day.

  The door to Melissa’s car was open, but Boy was nowhere to be seen.

  Odd dappled moonlight gave the landscape an eerie, unfamiliar sheen. I was near my own backyard but, suddenly, I seemed to be looking out on a stranger’s land. I froze, hoping to take in the entire scene at once, sensing as much as seeing any movement.

  I was startled first by a shushing of leaves a few yards down the hill, followed almost immediately, then, by the sound of Andrews breaking through the ivy behind me.

  “Are you out of your mind?” he exploded.

  “Sh!” I commanded in a stage whisper. “He’s right down there!”

  I pointed in the direction of the leaf sound.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

  “I think I’m chasing a maniac with a gun.” The truth is a complete defense, I thought.

  Of all things, that snapped Andrews out of the stupor that had begun moments before when he’d seen the dead body.

  “Well,” he told me, grinning, “as long as you have a plan.”

  There was another odd crackling of autumn leaves a little farther down the hill. Without any further thought, Andrews and I began running in that direction. I was trying
my best just to run, not to think. I had no idea what Andrews was trying to do.

  Stumbling across the road and seeing that my truck was parked where I’d left it proved reassuring. I couldn’t have said why at the time, but there was something about it that convinced me I was still in my own reality, ridiculous as that may sound.

  Once the road was crossed, the hill sloped downward at a fairly steep pitch and I didn’t run so much as try to keep from falling down. Gravity pulled me toward the killer.

  I could barely make him out, thirty or so yards below me, running and looking back. He knew I was coming. I wasn’t sure why he didn’t shoot his pistol, except that it was dark and I was moving in between trees. I didn’t present much of a target. Flight was his best option.

  I seemed to be gaining on him, possibly because he was looking backward so much, I thought. Something about his running seemed less a desperate escape than—what was it? Taunting? Did he want me to catch him? Or did he genuinely believe that he would vanish at any moment, leaving Andrews and me in the dark woods under an autumn’s moon?

  He came to a rock outcropping. It was too large to go over; he chose to go around in the direction of my house. If he kept going in that direction, he’d end up in my side yard just before the mountain took a more dramatic plunge downward toward the town below.

  I realized that I had the advantage of knowing the terrain better than he did—maybe it was one reason I was traveling faster than he was. Also, he was being pursued; he chose the path and had to think about it beforehand, or at least make choices. All I had to do was keep my eyes on him and go.

  As I veered around the rock outcropping, I realized I was close enough to hear him gasping for breath—perhaps only ten feet away. I also realized that my heart was pounding like a hammer on an anvil, and my chest felt like the anvil. I wouldn’t be able to keep up the pace much longer.

  People in the movies and on television manage those chases all the time, I thought deliriously. How do they do it? No one has that much energy.

  Just as I was thinking it, a hulking mass hurled past me, took to the air, and flew directly into Boy Jackson. Andrews had tackled him. They rolled over several times, and Andrews wound up on top.