The Ascent of PJ Marshall

by Brian J. Anderson

  “All right, sir, just stay where you are until the officers arrive. Understand?”

  “Yeah.”

  “May I speak with PJ again, please?”

  “Yeah.”

  Hackett held the phone out to PJ.

  “He wants to talk to you.”

  PJ set the canister in his lap and took the phone. He hung up and placed another call, grimacing as he lifted the phone to his ear.

  “Yeah,” he said. “It worked. Sort of.”

  Hackett stood and went to the chair, finding a gruesome collection of blood smears up and down its back. Shaking his head, he placed the gun on the armrest and sat. He lit a cigarette, blowing his first drag into the light, scattering the insect cloud. He watched PJ on the phone.

  “Not yet,” PJ said.

  Hackett remembered thinking how much the young guy in that picture looked like his own father. At least like the man in the photographs squirreled away in his apartment. He couldn’t even guess what he looked like now. If he cared to try.

  “Anna, I can’t—can’t do it. I’m sorry.”

  He was twelve years old again, eavesdropping from the top of the stairs. His mother on the phone, cackling, telling his father he got what he deserved. Hackett saw his father—and then himself—alone, broken and bloody on a prison floor, unable to lift his pants.

  “You must know someone who—you don’t understand. I won’t be able to.”

  Hackett pulled from his cigarette.

  “I don’t know. One of your field people,” PJ said.

  If he cooperated, gave them Ward, testified, named names, showed remorse…maybe he’d be okay. Maybe he’d get minimum security or house arrest. Maybe probation. Maybe Jane wouldn’t think he was a murdering prick.

  “Anna, I’m sorry. Sorry you got dragged into this. Tell Jim I’m sorry too. Goodbye.”

  PJ hung up and turned off his phone and set it on the table. He smashed it with an empty bottle and then picked up the film canister, his breath coming in labored gasps. Hackett sat forward and dropped his cigarette butt into a bottle, watching. He nodded at the scattered remains of the phone.

  “Women, huh?”

  Glassy eyed, PJ looked up from the canister cradled in his lap.

  “Who told you…and Ward about my dad?”

  Hackett weighed his reply behind a silent gaze.

  “Tom Hansen. And he told Ward, not me.”

  PJ leaned forward, exhaling in a slow hiss.

  “Tom Hansen,” he echoed.

  “Yeah. Bill Hansen’s son. Of Hansen Timber. Total scumbag.”

  PJ coughed. Bracing himself with a hand on the table, he cleared his throat.

  “Isn’t he…on their side?”

  Hackett laughed and took the cigarettes from his pocket.

  “No. He’s on Tom Hansen’s side.”

  Hackett lit up and offered the pack to PJ, who shook his head and settled into the couch with a groan.

  “But yeah,” Hackett said. “He’s screwed the Old Man plenty of times. Got a real knack for playing the middle, getting both sides to fuck each other over. His number’ll come up.”

  PJ stared across the table in a daze, his eyelids beginning to droop, his body no longer shaking. He drew a labored breath.

  “You all make me sick.”

  Hackett pulled on his cigarette, noting PJ’s rapid physical decline.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  PJ nodded.

  “Did Ward tell you how to find me?”

  The question drew only a cold, unmoving stare. Hackett leaned forward and waved his hand, drawing a nod.

  “Right down to your parking space. And your tag number.”

  Hackett sat back, flicking ash onto the floor.

  “Motherfucker.” He glanced at the film canister, held loosely in PJ’s hand. “What’s in there?”

  PJ pursed his lips and looked down, his countenance becoming less grave.

  “My birthday present.” He raised the empty canister, showing Hackett its open end. “You see them? My dad? And Sara and my mom? Best birthday ever.”

  Hackett looked up, his eyes wide as PJ stared back across the table with a sleepy grin.

  “Oh, shit,” Hackett said, jumping from the chair and racing to PJ’s side, his hands raised in indignation. “What the hell? What did you take? Are you—?”

  PJ raised his foot and delivered an explosive blow to Hackett’s stomach, sending him backwards onto the table with a deafening clatter of bottles. The table collapsed beneath him, rolling Hackett onto the floor in a sputtering heap. He scrambled to his feet, keeping his distance as he aimed an accusing finger at PJ.

  “You asshole! Calling me a fucking coward!”

  PJ again lifted his foot, his body shaking. His face crumpled as he broke down.

  “Get the fuck away from me!”

  With a sweeping kick, PJ buckled Hackett’s knee, knocking him to the floor. Undeterred, Hackett pulled PJ by the ankles from the couch, sending him into a fury of violent kicks and feeble swings of his arm. Hackett struggled to pin him on his back, taking punches to his face and upper body, knees to the groin and stomach.

  “Get off! Leave me alone, you murdering fuck!”

  Holding PJ’s arm to the floor, Hackett pressed his forearm across his throat and sat on him. PJ thrashed and rolled, but Hackett held tight as PJ’s strength quickly faded, his body cycling through spasms of resistance until, reduced to a weeping shell, he was still.

  Hackett eased up on PJ’s neck. They stared at each other, wide-eyed and shaking. PJ spit in Hackett’s face and turned away.

  “I was his partner. You take one of us…you get both.”

  Wiping his mouth on his sleeve, Hackett took PJ by the hair, releasing his arm. He pried PJ’s mouth open.

  “It wasn’t like that,” he said, jamming his fingers down PJ’s throat. “I told you.”

  PJ gagged and rolled against him, grabbing Hackett’s wrist, trying to pull his hand away. He bit down hard with his front teeth, drawing a hoarse scream from Hackett but strengthening his resolve. Blood trickled over his hand as Hackett dug deeper, tossing his head back in pain.

  “Aaahhh! You’re such an asshole!”

  PJ began to sweat. His throat clenched in spasmodic waves as he gagged on Hackett’s probing fingers.

  “Come on, PJ. Let’s have it.”

  Twisting his head, PJ worked Hackett’s little finger between his molars and ground into it with a wet, muffled crunch. Hackett’s grip on PJ’s hair gave out as he rolled aside, thrashing and kicking and screaming in horror. His breath caught in a fit of coughs as the room grew hazy and began to spin.

  Eddie’s boot caught the back of PJ’s head with a thud, jerking it forward and twisting Hackett’s hand free. Still coughing, Hackett rounded on PJ, turning him onto his back and delivering a barrage of heavy blows to his stomach. From behind, Eddie grabbed Hackett under the arms and pulled him off, shouting in his ear.

  “Jesus Christ, Hackett! He’s done!”

  With a rattling wheeze, PJ rolled to his knees and crawled to the door in a series of lurches, grunting as his weight fell onto his wounded arm. Hackett kicked and shuffled his feet in protest, scattering bottles across the floor as Eddie dragged him back.

  “Goddamn it, Ed! Let me go! I know what I’m doing!”

  Eddie dropped Hackett to the floor and stood between them. With his crushed finger closed in a fist, Hackett rose to his elbows, panting and furious. Eddie raised his hands in a call for restraint, glancing back at PJ as he spoke.

  “Hack! He’s not going anywhere. Look—”

  “Shut up!” Hackett said, ducking to look through Eddie’s legs. “Shut up a second.”

  In the doorway, PJ was sitting back on his heels, bracing himself against the door jamb with his outstretched hand. He was crying, his head hung nearly to the floor. His back arched and fell with a wave of idle nausea and he turned to stare at Hackett, his nose and chin dripping with a thick, dark ooze.
His face drew in and his back arched again as he vomited on the threshold, roaring curses between waves, pounding the door frame with his fist. Hackett collapsed onto his back.

  “Jesus.”

  Eddie sat on the floor next to Hackett, watching PJ struggle to his feet.

  “You all right, Hack?”

  Holding up his hand, Hackett examined his mangled fingertip, cringing as he opened and closed his fist.

  “Yeah.”

  PJ shuffled down the front steps and into the darkness, bringing Eddie to his feet.

  “Hey!” he said, approaching the door. “Get back—”

  “It’s fine, Ed. Let him go.”

  Eddie helped Hackett to his feet, glancing back at the door.

  “Who the fuck is that?”

  On his way outside, Hackett plucked the flashlight from among the scattered bottles on the floor. He stopped short of the steps and turned back.

  “Do you have your phone?”

  “It’s in my car.”

  “Call 911 back and tell them he overdosed on something. They need to hurry.”

  Hackett followed PJ down the drive, his light sweeping over the gravel and then settling on PJ’s back, casting his hobbling silhouette onto the trees. Eddie called after him from the porch.

  “It’s fuckin’ 911! They always hurry!”

  Stepping up his pace, Hackett yelled over his shoulder.

  “Just do it! And check his puke. See if you can find anything.”

  PJ turned off the driveway and onto the grassy lane, his unsteady gait slowing as he reached the shed. Throwing the door wide, he stumbled inside. Hackett hesitated at the door.

  Christ. Not again.

  He found PJ on his back in the dirt, his arm wrapped around the bloody post, his wheezing quick and shallow. Shivering, he dug his heels into the ground, pushing himself to a sit against the post. As Hackett set the flashlight on the ground and sat beside him, PJ took off the cap and held it on his lap, running his thumb over its ragged brim.

  “You were too late, Hackett,” he said, his voice a thin, raspy drawl. “I…can’t feel anything.”

  PJ smacked his immobilized shoulder back repeatedly against the post, shaking as he broke into hysterical laughter, each strike heavier than the last. With a decisive final blow, he slumped against Hackett’s side, his weakening laughter morphing into quiet, shuddering sobs. They sat together in grim resignation, each to his own fate. Outside, the whippoorwill began to sing and Eddie’s muffled voice drifted through gaps in the shed’s siding. PJ sat up.

  “Hackett,” he said, falling forward onto his elbow.

  “Yeah?”

  “On my back. Look for…my old scars…”

  His voice trailed off into a low groan as he collapsed onto his stomach in the dirt. Hackett reached for the flashlight, his hand shaking.

  “What?”

  PJ reached behind him and pulled up his shirt.

  “At the bottom. Four of ‘em. They’re…little circles.”

  With a nervous sweep of his light, Hackett lit him up and recoiled with a gasp. Layers of soaked gauze and flannel were wrapped around his torso, clinging to a dark, sticky film of blood and dirt covering his back. At the gaps in PJ’s wrappings, Hackett could see the deep gouges that ran up his back from hip to shoulder, their constant ooze of blood glistening in the light. Hackett looked away as the wounds worked open in rhythm with PJ’s labored breathing, revealing the muscle beneath.

  “Holy shit.”

  “Can you see ‘em?”

  His eyes welling up, Hackett turned back and searched PJ’s injuries through a moist blur.

  “Shit, I don’t know.”

  PJ’s hand slid onto the ground. He dragged it by his side, reclaiming the cap and pressing it to his cheek.

  “Okay.”

  As if strangled by unseen hands, PJ and the whippoorwill both fell silent.

  Hackett pulled PJ’s shirt down and reached up to place a hand on his shoulder. As his light passed over the fleshy exit wound on its back side, he withdrew. He turned off the light, tipping his head back against the post.

  “I’m sorry.”

  The whine of an approaching siren rose over the rolling buzz of cricket song and Hackett turned to watch the silent form laid out beside him, covered in a patchwork of moonlight filtering through the back wall of the shed.

  “PJ?”

  Hackett turned away and dragged his sleeve over his eyes. Gazing through the dim outline of the shed door, he waited for the absolving flicker of red in the trees.

  “Tell him I’m sorry.”

  chapter twenty-three

  Jim

  He laid the shotgun across the log, training it across the river to where the path emerged from the woods. He took an envelope from his shirt pocket and sat against the log, carefully placing the nearly empty whiskey bottle on the ground beside him. The canopy rustled in a sudden breeze, briefly drowning the distant buzz of eager chainsaws as he removed a letter from the envelope, its creases worn from repeated folding. He checked the path.

  His camp was gone, the lean-to and table dismantled and scattered, replaced by survey stakes tipped with ribbons of orange tape. The bottle caught his eye and he stared at it, pursing his lips. A photograph fell from the folds of his letter, and he trapped it against his leg, creasing it in half.

  “Son of a bitch…”

  With the letter in his lap, he examined the photo, bending it back into shape, smoothing the damage with his thumb. He propped it against the bottle and gazed at the smiling faces, looking back at him from a simpler time. Butch was on Jim’s porch, holding his trophy Steelhead, shoving it towards the camera as PJ and Jim flanked him, their arms around his shoulders. On their faces, a hint of sunburn and sweat glowed in the late afternoon sun. The hum of an approaching bulldozer drifted up the flanks of Bald Mountain. He opened the letter.

  Jim,

  Hope all is well. This letter is long overdue and can’t wait any longer. I hope you know that I have enormous respect for you. I always have. Your passion and grit are rare commodities, sorely needed these days. I’m envious of the risks you take for your causes and I’m glad we’ve always been on the same side. You have to understand, though, that I can’t take the same risks. I’m sorry if you see me as weak or uncommitted, but there’s too much at stake for me.

  Having said that, I think it would be best if we went our separate ways for now. Things are getting too intense, and I need to step back from all of this for a little while. Maybe some time focusing on the simple things will give me a fresh perspective. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been neglecting what’s most important in my life for too long.

  Jim pulled his sleeve across his eyes and picked up the whiskey, letting the photo fall flat on the ground. He drank, emptying the bottle.

  There’s no way I’ll ever be able to thank you for your help with PJ, so just know that you’ve earned my deepest gratitude. He’s doing great, and seems genuinely excited for his future. Again, thank you.

  Your friend,

  Butch

  The muffled crack of snapping limbs rose on the wind as Jim folded the letter and slipped it back into the envelope. He took a second, sealed envelope marked ‘PJ’ from his pocket and held it on top of the first, his hands shaking. Sniffling, he rolled the envelopes together and pushed them through the neck of the whiskey bottle. Caught by a gust of wind, the photograph fluttered across the ground, coming to rest against his foot. He picked it up and rubbed it on his shirt, clearing dust from the image. He closed his eyes, cursing as another tree fell.

  With extreme care, he rolled up the photograph and slipped it into the bottle, shaking it back into shape as best he could. He replaced the cap and laid the bottle on the ground beside him and stared at the blurred image within, his head against the log, tears dripping from his nose. A chorus of distant chainsaws buzzed. He rose to his feet, seizing the gun.

  “Fuck you!”

  From his side, Jim unloade
d a shell across the river and down the path, shaking the underbrush and sending leaf fragments fluttering to the ground. A pileated woodpecker chattered and flushed from the canopy as Jim ejected the shell. He studied the survey stakes at the edge of the camp, putting the nearest of them under careful aim. He fired. The top of the stake vanished, leaving a splintered stump and shreds of orange ribbon floating in the breeze. He took out another. And another. A contented smirk lit on his face, and he sat on the log, standing the gun on the ground in front of him. His ringing ears picked up faint voices, yelling over the idling equipment. His head spun. Clutching the barrel of his gun, Jim slumped forward, resting his forehead on the hot muzzle, staring down at the picture in the bottle between his feet. His upper lip curled and he broke down. Tears dripped onto the bottle, distorting his image into obscurity.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He reached down and pulled the trigger.

  chapter twenty-four

  PJ

  PJ set his glass on the bar and tugged at his collar. On his toes, he searched the murmuring sea of tuxedos and evening gowns.

  God, he’d hate this.

  “Another beer, sir?”

  Checking his watch, PJ reclaimed his seat at the bar, nodding to the bartender.

  “Thanks.”

  A news broadcast began on the television above the back bar, and PJ leaned forward, straining against the din.

  “We have some breaking news on a story we brought you last week. Bighorn Oil, the Houston based company under investigation for its illegal drilling operations, appears to be in more hot water.”

  PJ glanced aside as the crowd quieted and pushed towards the bar.

  “Channel Twelve has learned that a man with ties to organized crime may have been hired by executives in Bighorn’s Chicago office to monitor the company’s Cheyenne, Wyoming site.”

  A mug shot of Phil the bartender appeared on the screen.

  “Authorities confirm that this man, Steven Davis, was found dead of a stab wound just inside the site’s borders. Before his death, Davis—under various aliases including Don Simpson and Phil Bracken—had allegedly assaulted an activist photographing oil wells drilled in the adjoining Shoshone Indian Reservation. Citing the ongoing investigation, authorities have not released the activist’s identity, nor have they confirmed or denied the activist’s role, if any, in Mr. Davis’s death. Our calls this afternoon to the Laramie County sheriff’s office were not immediately returned.”