How Fire Runs

by Charles Dodd White

  At the road he paused as he waited for the quarter moon to enmesh itself in the tree branches. Once it did he slipped through the mottled light, a creature of mere shape and motion, who left just the slight signature of sounds as he went across and climbed the trail that led to Gerald Picken’s cabin. He circled around to where he could see into the bedroom window and stood there for a long time to let the wilderness settle around him. Inside no lights burned. Still, he gained suggestions of outlines and angles. The old woman wasn’t there this evening. This could be it then, if he chose. He touched the barrel of the pistol riding in his front pocket. This could be a quick decision. Kill the old man while he slept and make him a victim of his own self-righteousness. There was a certain justice in that. But he did not draw the pistol. He only watched Pickens sleep. The old man oblivious to the charity he was being granted. There was a power and dignity in that too.

  10

  KYLE HAD A FULL DAY IN TOWN. HE HAD DRIVEN OUT TO THE HOSPITAL to sit with Turner Whist for a while, played gin with him in the visitors’ room for the hour they would allow, then came back to meet a man from the seed supplier to figure out how best to plan his summer orders. It was all a scratch of numbers on yellowed tabs of paper and that kind of patient give and take between men who, though each had a thousand items of account in their heads, nevertheless persisted in the illusion that they had all the time in the world, and they would be content to walk away if the deal fell through, though neither man wanted or could afford that. Eventually, they put the business to rest, pleased that neither seemed too proud or abused and that they parted on good terms, the future orders settled.

  He drove around town aimlessly for a while, considered drinking a couple of beers to linger in the warm feeling of accomplishment before going back to the empty house. He got as close as sitting in the parking lot of a little out-of-the-way place off the highway where he could see a couple of guys shooting pool under the honky-tonk lights when he decided it would be better to look in on Gerald once more, make sure everything out there was as quiet as he wanted it to be.

  All the house lights were blazing. Even so, he made plenty of noise coming up the side of the hill. Wanted to be sure the old man knew that whoever was coming had no surreptitious designs. Once he made the final crest, he could see Gerald had come out to the front steps, was scratching one of the goats behind the ears while he pondered the evening.

  “Hard to recall a season this dry, ain’t it?”

  Kyle took a moment on the bottom step to catch his breath before answering.

  “I thought it was the green thumb’s business to worry about turns of the weather. You aim to run me out of business? I don’t think I could stand the competition.”

  Gerald joggled his head, laughed.

  “You want a pinch of snuff?”

  “Yeah, why not?”

  Gerald’s vague hand moved in the dark to his shirt pocket, pinched a small take for himself before flipping the tin of Skoal to Kyle.

  “First time I ever took this stuff I felt like I was going to puke my guts up.”

  “Why hell, son. So does everybody. That’s why we keep at it.”

  “And why’s that?”

  “To prove we can take it,” Gerald said, spat.

  They sat there listening to the night for a while; the flying bugs thumped themselves against the naked porch bulbs.

  “You know, when somebody brings up the weather, it’s usually as a way of getting toward something else,” Kyle said.

  “Hell, weather is all we have to talk about. Seems plenty enough to me. Land out here scorching under our feet. Damn hurricanes every other week down in Florida. We’ve made this hell we’re living in. This, this is just the epilogue. Makes unnatural things natural. Makes people like these across the road, makes these cockroaches know it’s time to come out and feed.”

  Kyle was wary of the way Gerald’s mind had turned.

  “I don’t need to be worried about you out here by yourself, do I, Gerald?”

  The old man’s eyes crawled the dark.

  “They been sneaking out here, spying on me.”

  “Spying on you?”

  “Hell, I know you think I’m crazy, but I know what I know. Don’t worry, I’m not going to shoot them. Not dumb enough to play into their hands. Dumb enough for plenty of things, but not that.”

  Kyle stood and stepped to the edge of the porch, listened for something out there that might lend credence to what the old man believed.

  “You feel unsafe out here, Gerald?”

  “Hard for a man my age to care too much about that, idn’t it? Every morning I wake up I imagine I’ve found a way to beat the odds. No, I don’t worry too much about what might happen to me. I think they just want to let me know that they could do something if they wanted to. Want to show that they’re young men and I’m not. Nothing too unusual in that, is there?”

  Kyle ignored the question and the accusation it implied.

  “You got my number in your phone, you know that?”

  “Yeah, I know it. I might even bother to dial it once I need to.”

  Kyle nodded, stepped down. “That’s good,” he said. “You want me to step out here in the yard and look things over?”

  “Naw. You get on home. I imagine if anybody can, it’s me that can find some peace in the evening dark.”

  KYLE DROVE back through Elizabethton slowly. It had gotten late and much of the town had succumbed to one of its habitual early nights. There was no surprise in that. So much of what happened here was as dependable as a timetable. Some despised life in small towns because of this predictability, but it offered its own pleasures, its own particular support. Perhaps that was at the heart of why he worried about what this involvement with the people from Little Europe could mean.

  His conversation with Gerald had worked something slow and nagging inside him. Gavin Noon didn’t belong, and by trying to wedge himself into their community he had started something. Gerald had been right. There was a difference in how this outsider meant to steer the future. You could see it on him as clearly as if it had been stamped. And once it would be allowed to start there would be something dangerous born in people’s minds. The world would begin to seem like something that could split and reveal inner poison. Hatred could take hold of a place like a virus, and once the mutations began to multiply and infect, it would turn everything inside out. Noon represented what people buried in their shame. Kyle wouldn’t let people forget their conscience just because someone played a clever sleight of hand.

  He cleared town and took the country highway. The looming dark of the mountain blocked out the town lights and he switched on his high beams. As he did so he caught sight of a vehicle trailing him. Not too close, but enough to note as he turned onto the riverside gravel road. There were only three other houses this far out in the hollow and they belonged to families who would have been abed at a far more decent hour. He crept through the deep curve above the falls and pulled the .380 from the glove box. He rested it on his right thigh while he wheeled down the straightaway with his free hand.

  The headlights pressed in nearer until he could feel himself silhouetted in the truck cab. The entry to his drive was only a few yards more. Before he came to it he whipped abruptly in to a patch of hard ground, cut his lights and slid across to the passenger’s side. He dropped out just as the following vehicle slid past, so that he had the cover of his truck between him and them. His nerves went tight when the car swung up into his driveway and stayed there, raced the engine. It was too dark to see how many might be inside the car. Could only tell that it was a sedan of some kind. He slithered down a few steps and chanced a quick glimpse across the truck bed. If they came at him now he had time for three maybe four quick shots from the semiautomatic. But in the dark, accuracy couldn’t be counted on. The car remained where it was, made its high racing threat. He aimed at the passenger window, snapped the safety free.

  The car swung back wildly in reverse, struck t
he truck’s rear quarter panel and bounced with a tremendous shower of gravel. Kyle touched his finger to the trigger and two quick reports went somewhere into the night before the car was away back the way it had come, brake lights flashing. He stood there for a long time, until he vomited into the ditch, steadied himself so that he could climb back into his truck.

  The moon was up but it was like something he’d never seen before. It lay tracks through his eyes. He felt it had the power to split him.

  PART II

  11

  JONATHAN HAD WATCHED HER FROM HIS HIGH WINDOW IN THE evenings when she went by herself to the edge of the property to walk beside the softly breaking tree line. At first, he had tried to stay to the interior shadows, but with each repeated appearance he began to believe she wanted him to see her, so he stood at the sill and gave her what she wanted.

  He’d been with women like her before. With a man for convenience, protection, or perhaps simple habit. But always looking for a chance to slip the leash. Still, Harrison wasn’t someone to be casually overlooked. Even if he didn’t want anything to do with Delilah, the shaven-headed muscle freak wouldn’t abide the humiliation of open betrayal. It would take strategy then, finesse.

  “Hey, you gonna share one of them cigarettes?” she called up.

  He leaned forward from the open window.

  “You want me to throw it to you?”

  He was smiling, having fun with her. He saw the smile returned.

  “Hold on a minute. Let me get my boots on.”

  He sat on the edge of his military-made cot and snugged the black leather boots on. Popped, wrapped, and tied the laces and was down the stairs inside of a minute. The crisp drills of basic training still held their mold somewhere inside his head. All that hurry up and wait had evidently written itself into him in such a way that he was always ready, always responsive. Army was good for that, at least. Harrison might have the hard schooling of being locked up, but Jonathan had this ability to duck and move, react to other shifting pieces on a board game table. Find out where he needed to position himself in relationship to everyone else in order to gain maximum advantage.

  She had drawn up against a pine tree, one leg cocked back while she waited.

  “You’re johnny on the spot, aren’t you?”

  “I know better than to keep a serious woman waiting.”

  He held out one of his cigarettes, lit it for her.

  From the house they could hear Gavin and a couple of others talking on the front porch. Mostly just Gavin, which was the way he preferred it.

  “How’d you ever run across him?” she asked.

  “People with a purpose have a way of finding each other, don’t they? I could ask the same about Harrison, couldn’t I?”

  Her smile thinned, though she still held his eye.

  “I don’t want to talk about him right now.”

  He couldn’t tell if she was wounded or merely pretending to be.

  “You haven’t had much chance to get out into town, have you? Why don’t you take a ride with me for a little bit. Run the roads.”

  “Don’t you need to ask somebody for permission before you go running off?” she teased.

  He knew he had her then.

  “No,” he said. “Do you?”

  THEY STOPPED for a sixer of Natty Light and drove out past Hampton and the lake, just to put miles behind them. It was soon dark, and Jonathan parked down an old logging road. It was warm out despite the hour and sitting inside the van without air-conditioning wasn’t comfortable, so they tore off a couple of beers to take along on a walk to get fresh air.

  “You like walking out in the woods with attached women?”

  “Is that what you are?”

  She made a movement with her shoulders.

  “Seems like a reasonable question. Just so we can understand how things lie.”

  “I feel like we’re both beginning to get a pretty good idea of that.”

  Her silence didn’t contradict him.

  The ground steepened and the loose soil underfoot began to roll and squirm as they trudged toward the switchback. Jonathan steadied her by the bicep as they climbed. He could feel the live strength of her jerk beneath his touch like closed circuit. Even so, she didn’t discourage his guiding hand.

  “Look at that there,” he said, pointed above the ridge at the scimitar moon.

  She went on ahead to get a better view. She pushed through the low branches until they came to the ridge crest and all the mountains were patchworks of shade and cool moonlight. He settled his hands around her hips. She turned to face him, did not pull away. She had a smell that made him want to hold her hard enough that she couldn’t breathe.

  “That’s nice,” she said.

  “What is?”

  “The way you touch me. Like you mean it.”

  After a while she worked free and went out to a higher rock to get as close to the sky as she could. She sat down, drew her legs to her chest, and began to talk.

  “One of my mama’s boyfriends, he used to take us both out into the woods at night and teach the constellations. He had a telescope he’d take with us and we’d run through everything. Even now I can tell direction on a clear night.”

  He came up and stood next to her, his hand placed on the stone, just beyond the warmth of her thigh.

  “I’ve heard a compass is pretty good for that too,” he said.

  “I didn’t come out here for you to make fun of me.”

  “I didn’t mean to.”

  “Yeah, you did. You think that makes you better than me, talking like that. That’s what men do.”

  He saw no profit in contradicting her. In a minute, she slid off the rock and started back toward the van.

  She turned her head over her shoulder.

  “You coming or you want me to leave you out here for the bears and coyotes?”

  He had been ready to laugh when he heard the step of something heavy in the brush. Without a word, he hurried back.

  12

  HARRISON WHEELED DOWN 75 WHILE EMMANUEL DOZED IN THE SUN. The day was hot but he ran with the windows down while the wind played at his chest and face. They were down to the Georgia line by noon and into the commuter sprawl of Atlanta by the end of the lunch hour. Harrison prodded Emmanuel awake. He sat there under the heavy influence of sleep for a few minutes before he was able to give directions.

  “It won’t take long. I remember the place pretty well.”

  They got off the interstate and cruised into midtown, where they parked in a stucco deck. Harrison picked up his gym bag from the trunk and left the car itself unlocked. It was empty and besides, the only vehicle in the parking area worth less than fifty thousand dollars. They walked down the smooth dark concrete of the ramp into the tremendous city light and heat and it was if they were cast onto the blister of a completely new world, but they moved through that too, past all the glass and Gucci until they found the sidewalk and began to make their way through the midday crowds.

  Ten minutes later found them in the climate-controlled lobby of the hotel where they stood waiting for one of the glass elevators. When it arrived it made a sounds like expelled breath. No one else was inside, and when Emmanuel pushed the button for the top and it began to lift them they could see the lengthening dimensions of the inner building rush away.

  The doors opened into a dark corridor that held a single door framed by a rectangle of sunlight. They walked toward it as they heard the sound of lapping water and people talking. The door opened and a naked bodybuilder stood blocking the way.

  “Are you here to see Mister Sterne?” the bodybuilder asked. As they got closer they could see that he had touched up his cheeks with the suggestion of rouge. Also, he smelled good, some expensive perfume dabbed along his neck or chest.

  “We are,” Emmanuel said. “He’s expecting to see us.”

  The bodybuilder stood aside and waved them through.

  As they crossed the threshold they came into a large ar
ea contained with a high glass ceiling open at the peak. Several nude men wearing sunglasses sat sunbathing around a turquoise swimming pool sipping cocktails from zinc mugs and long-stemmed glasses. At a recess a black man wearing a woman’s single-piece swimsuit served drinks across a lacquered bar.

  “Emmanuel, my savior, there you are!” an old man wearing a terry cloth robe crowed. He wore a hemp beach hat pulled down on what must have been an enormous skull. He reminded Harrison of Marlon Brando in The Island of Doctor Moreau.

  He stood and took Emmanuel in a full embrace and did the same to Harrison as soon as they were introduced.

  “Excellent to finally meet you, my boy. Your reputation does you many favors. Would you care for refreshment of some stripe? A Mai Tai or something more butch perhaps? We do have an entire cooler stocked with Samuel Adams.”

  “I’m fine, thank you.”

  “Of course you are, my lad. But please, before we get to any significant discussion, I’m absolutely overheated. Let’s all retire to the pool for a few minutes.”

  Without waiting to see if his visitors were in agreement, Sterne loosened his belt and let his robe pool at his feet, releasing pale bulk unguarded by the mercy of clothing. He strolled past and cannonballed into the pool with a tremendous splash. Emmanuel and Harrison disrobed and lowered themselves into the water via the ladder. They tread water as they watched Sterne make two laborious laps before waving them over. The beach hat, though streaming, remained clapped securely to his head.