The Last American Martyr

by Tom Winton; Rolffimages

  With my countrywide ramblings hopefully behind me, living much cheaper now, I tried to figure out how much money I’d need for the future. Just in case I actually had one. After adding in the social security I’d begin collecting in one year, I kept just enough to get by on. Then, on one of my trips to Presque Isle, I went to the bank and finally had $758,000.00 sent to Habitat for Humanity.

  When at long last spring arrived, I could feel my mangled spirits rising along with the temperatures. No longer did it get dark outside at three-thirty in the afternoon. The cracks I’d gotten in my fingertips from the cold began to heal. What was left of the biggest snowdrifts was small and scattered. Velvety pussy willows bloomed up and down Split Branch Road, and green buds appeared on the limbs of the few maples and elms on the property. I could hear the stream in the woods across the road flowing again. A layer of thin grass began to sprout in the front and back, and I no longer needed my navy-blue sock hat or insulated jacket.

  Happily, I resumed my jogging on the logging roads. As I ran each morning with the sun warm on my face, I began to feel a little more at peace with my loss of Elaina. Of course, the passage of time had also helped the healing process. Like Julie had said, and I knew, Elaina would always be with me. But still, I was doing a somewhat better job of handling the dark void that still lurked inside me. Julie and I still talked every week, and we missed each other terribly. She never hounded me to come back to her, but it was more than obvious she wanted that badly. Nevertheless, all things considered, I was feeling considerably better. Of course, I was fed up with hiding out like a criminal. And there were times I questioned whether such an existence was better than the alternative. But in spite of that uncertainty, I actually felt a little bounce returning to my step.

  Then things got even better. One bright sunny day at the end of May I became friends with my mailman. I’d rather not go into the details of what brought on our first conversation, so let’s just say I was hanging from a tree limb thirty feet off the ground, and he saved me. The important point is that I made a friend. Take it from me—it is not healthy to go months on end without trading any words of consequence with another human being. Sure, I’d talked to Solace plenty, but they were always one-sided conversations. There were the phone calls, too, but they were few and far between. As much as I’d lost faith in humanity, I was still a part of that questionable lot. I still needed to exchange thoughts and feelings with somebody. Jake Snow was just the person I needed.

  Twenty years younger than I, Jake turned out to be a very caring, insightful person. And that was lucky for me. Not thinking rationally the day he saved me from that impending fall, I invited him into the trailer for a beer. Normally that would have been perfectly fine, but Jake, like everybody else in White Pine, thought my name was Darius McClure. Shook up as I was from my near demise, I’d completely forgotten about a newspaper article I’d hung on the living room wall. Framed and in plain view was the front page of The New York Times with a picture of me accepting The Nobel Prize. And the caption beneath it certainly didn’t state my name as Darius McClure. If Jake Snow hadn’t turned out to be such a prince I would have certainly blown my cover.

  With the sun shining through the living room window that afternoon, we had a long talk. Slowly sipping beer in reclining chairs, we spoke of much bigger things than new acquaintances usually do. Nevertheless, starved as I was for human interaction, I was wary at first. I had to be. But that quickly changed. In no time at all I realized I wasn’t only talking to a man with an affable personality but a deep sense of integrity as well. There was no question about it—Jake was a no-nonsense, straight-from-the-heart, forthright man. So when I opened up to him, far sooner than I normally would under such circumstances, it felt perfectly natural. And that was fine. Jake was very interested in everything I told him. It seemed he couldn’t get enough of my stories.

  That’s why, when it came time for him to leave, I asked if he’d like to read my memoir. I deeply wanted to share my unfortunate experiences with someone I could trust. I needed to share them. There is nothing in this world, other than the passage of time that can help heal wounds like heartfelt empathy from another. It is truly amazing how releasing pent-up troubles can actually lighten them.

  Another thing I knew for sure was: I’d be damn thankful for any help I could muster after a year and a half on the run. Though I had come to love Julie at the end of my Montana stay, I hadn’t wanted to overload her with every last detail at once. And I felt the same way about Jake. I told him I’d give him just one chapter every week to read. I also told him if he got to a point where he felt he was learning things that he shouldn’t know, information that could put him at risk, he should stop reading right then and there.

  When Jake returned a chapter each week, usually on Saturdays, we’d share a few beers and talk. We’d discussed what he’d most recently read and then go onto other things. A few times he told me how rising prices were weighing down on his spirit. How the constant skyrocketing costs of gasoline, food, and health insurance were making a shambles of his budget. But for the most part, we discussed broader issues. We talked about America’s drowning working class, the environment, the wars cropping up all around the globe, and the devolving human condition. We looked to each other for hope and optimism. And though we had to dig deep sometimes, we did find glints of both. As the weeks stacked into months, our talks and my recorded words brought Jake and me closer and closer. All through the summer and into the fall our fondness for each other only grew.

  By the end of October, it felt as if Jake Snow was the son I never had, and I think he considered me his mentor. Between our close relationship and the anonymity I’d been able to hold onto in White Pine, I could feel my healing process accelerating. For the first time since Elaina and I returned from Stockholm, a few soothing rays of hope were finding their way into my spirit.

  Then everything went all to hell again.

  Chapter 23

  Right after Jake finished reading the last completed chapter of my memoir, some strange, unnerving events started taking place. The first occurred one dreary afternoon when I was out back on the rider mower; mulching the last of autumn’s fallen leaves. Low, sallow clouds seemed to rest atop the pines, and there was a damp nip in the northeast wind. Solace was lazing on the porch, wishing she could come out by me, when she suddenly started some serious barking. It wasn’t a let-me-out-with-you-Tom kind of bark. It was angry and aggressive. Every bit as agitated as she’d been when we once saw a fisher chase a squirrel around the shed, she was again trying to climb up and through the screen door. I yelled at her to stop scratching, but she wouldn’t listen.

  Knowing for sure now that something was up, I quickly drove the rider to the end of the trailer. Stopping there I peered around the Subaru and down the driveway. Sure enough, about a minute and a half later—the time it takes to reach the end of the road, make a u-turn, and come back again—a huge, muscular pickup truck slowed to a stop at the end of my drive. It was one of those fifty-thousand-dollar models, a shiny black Ford F-450 with dual wheels in the back. The type you almost need a ladder to climb up into. This truck’s presence may not seem like enough reason for alarm, but other than Jake’s jeep, the garbage truck, and the snowplow, not a single soul had driven by my place in the sixteen months I’d been there. As I said earlier, nobody without a damn good reason drives to the far end of Split Branch Road. It’s that bad.

  I gestured a hello, but whoever was inside did not open the tinted windows. As I slowly dropped my hand to my side, a very eerie feeling slipped over me. I felt susceptible, defenseless. The hair on my arms stood up like the fur on a scared cat’s back.

  Staring at the black glass for a moment, wondering who and what motives were on the other side, I considered going inside for the Glock. Instead I started walking toward the truck. And as soon as I did, the over-sized Ford started to roll forward. An instant later, I lost sight of it behind the thick trees buffering the front lawn from the road,
and I broke into an all-out run like a sprinter who’d heard a starting gun go off. I wanted to see what kind of plates were on that truck. Maybe I could get the number, just in case. With the poor condition of the road I knew he’d never make it out of sight without my being able to see the rear plate.

  When I reached the road, the hulking truck was farther along than I thought it would be. Bouncing and jouncing like a runaway maverick, the driver was really pushing it. But I could still see the back bumper, and there was no license plate.

  Head down and deflated, I trudged back toward the trailer. As I made my way across the withered brown lawn, an entire swarm of frenzied thoughts spun wildly in my mind. They were disheartening thoughts, each a revitalized fear—stinging hard at the sense of well-being I’d so carefully fostered since coming to White Pine. I wondered why in God’s name things had to be the way they were. This life business is difficult enough to begin with. Some go so far as to speculate that the time we spend on earth is in actuality both heaven and hell. While there is no sure way of knowing this, I did know one thing for certain. I’d had more than my share of living hell.

  Once inside the trailer, I opened the back door to let Solace in from the porch. I then grabbed a beer, drug feet into the living room, and flopped into my recliner. With shaking hands, the paneled walls feeling like they were closing in on me, I lit a cigarette.

  Jesus no, not again!, I thought. What in the hell am I going to do now? All these months of relative peace, and now this. What was he, or they, doing here? I don’t even know how many were in the truck. No…I don’t know that, but I sure as hell do know somebody went through the trouble of taking that plate off for a reason. There’s an agenda behind all this. Either somebody or some people are just trying to shake me up a little, let me know they’re not real happy about my being here, or they have far more serious plans. They very well could have been surveilling the place to make sure I am who they suspect. Then what? What’s next? Fuck…this isn’t pretty!

  Two beers later, I decided I was not going to just up and leave this time. I had a home now, not just an RV. It would take more than just some angry cretin to drive me away. Things would have to get far worse. Not only that, but if whoever was in that truck came back again, and they brought with them more serious intentions, I’d be ready for them. I may be an emotional, peaceable person, but I was sick of it all and was not going to take this kind of crap lying down anymore. Before that devastating afternoon that Elaina and I returned from Sweden, I had never let anyone walk all over me. Now I’d had it. It wasn’t going to happen again. Sure, I was scared. Once again, I could taste fear’s vile bitterness, but this time I wasn’t going to swallow it. I was ready to spit it out and fight for whatever I had to.

  Though the weather was turning, it still wasn’t too cold to jog the logging road. All bundled up in a sweatshirt and the Bean jacket, with the sock hat back on my head, I went late the following morning. More than a little paranoid, my windblown eyes constantly scoured the trees on both sides of the deserted, narrow road. I also watched up ahead and turned around toward the Subaru often. Solace was in it. She never had the stamina to go the three miles with me, so I’d always left her at home. Now I refused to. I also didn’t like her being a mile and a half away by the time I turned to head back. But bringing her along seemed like the safest precautionary option. And everything went smoothly that first day.

  The next day I decided to run only three-quarters of a mile beyond the Subaru; then turn around and head back. When I reached the car again, I’d proceed the same distance in the opposite direction. This way, after the first half of the run, if anybody came up the logging road, I’d see them coming and at least not have to worry about Solace. Plus, I’d never be more than three-fourths of a mile away from her. Though I felt awfully foolish for not thinking of this strategy the day before, I blamed it on the findings of another Nobel Prize recipient. After months of jogging this road, always doing it the same way, I’d been conditioned like one of Ivan Pavlov’s dogs. Nevertheless, I was very relieved not to be so far away from my own dog.

  Jogging the first leg at a faster clip than usual so I’d get back quicker, I kept looking over my shoulder, making sure everything was okay. Then, when I took the very last look before hitting my new turnaround point, I saw something coming up the road. Raising dust in the distance there was a vehicle—making its way toward the Subaru. Though it was far away, and bright sunlight reflecting from its windshield made it difficult to see, it looked like a truck, and it looked black.

  Instantly, I spun around and broke into an all-out run. Already breathing hard from the accelerated pace, I pumped my knees and fists as high and fast as I possibly could. My strides were long and my focus did not leave that vehicle. Soon my lungs were burning. So were the straining muscles in my legs as I pushed on. Feeling for the all but useless bear-mace holstered at my side, wishing it was the Glock, my heart pummeled inside its ribbed cage like the fist of a crazed gorilla. Cold as it was, in the mid-thirties, I felt perspiration rising on my forehead beneath the sock hat. The trees enveloping me on both sides of the road blurred green in my periphery, but my eyes, wrenching as if in pain, bore straight ahead.

  Half the way back by now, there was no longer any question. Slowing down behind my car, towering behind it like an ominous black storm cloud, was the same Ford that had stopped in front of my driveway. I couldn’t yet hear Solace’s barks but knew she had to be going absolutely crazy. I was. It didn’t matter if the son-of-a-bitch shot me dead, I was going to do anything I could to protect Solace. I couldn’t make out his features or even tell if he was wearing a hat, but I did see somebody lean out the driver’s side window. Then, a few strides later, there was a shot.

  I flinched but kept running—harder now. As if it were rocket fuel, a new dose of adrenaline rushed through my limbs, propelling me even faster. I started weaving—zigging and zagging like an all-star running back. Sure, the bastard might hit me, but I wasn’t going to be a sitting duck.

  As I closed in on the truck, close enough now to hear Solace’s desperate barks—maybe a hundred and fifty yards away—I couldn’t believe my terrorized eyes. Not slowing down a bit, my chest totally in flames now, the truck started to move. The driver goosed the gas and the big rig lunged sharply to its left. He was actually making a u-turn. With the size of the pickup and the narrowness of the road it was a five-point-turn instead of a three, but it was a u-turn. And when he completed it, he took off so fast the dirt and stones his four rear tires peeled backwards peppered my Subaru like debris in a Category-5 hurricane. I could just imagine Solace inside, clawing at the glass, going even more psycho than before, as the stones pinged and dinged the back of the car.

  Finally, the truck’s tires made better traction, and it hauled back down that road as if it was at Daytona. I slowed to a rapid walk, grabbed my sides, and struggled for every breath. With my heart still thumping harder and faster than it had a right to, I watched the Ford quickly shrink in the distance. Somehow, I quelled the urge to chase it down. Like I said, my pistol was in the glove box. I could have gone after the truck, tried to put an end to all this lunacy one way or another. But I didn’t. Whoever was in that Ford was toying with me. He could have ended me right there and then. I didn’t know if that was his ultimate intention, or he wasn’t quite crazy enough to go that far. There were a lot of blanks to be filled in and questions to be answered. But I did know one thing for sure, there was no doubt in my mind that I hadn’t seen the last of that truck.

  When I got home twenty minutes later, I entered the trailer Glock first. Like a detective entering the home of a dangerous felon, I crouched low while peeking in the doorways to all the rooms. After finishing a thorough investigation—under the beds, inside the closets, behind the recliners—I may have felt a little foolish, but this was far from a joking matter. For two years I’d been living like a runaway slave, and now I’d finally had it. Sure, the months in White Pine had been peaceful, but all that ti
me I’d been forced to live like a scared animal in a burrow. Bad as that existence had been, I’d made the best of it. Now, even that was over.

  The only two options left were to put the gun to my head or come up with yet another plan. I didn’t know what the right thing to do was. Not having a clue, I rushed into the bedroom, picked up Elaina’s urn from the dresser, lay down in bed with it, and only hoped she could give me guidance.

  After a long, long time in that bedroom, I’d finally devised a plan. I didn’t know if there was enough time to enact it, but it was my only chance. After working out the very last detail, I kissed the urn and placed it back on the dresser. Then there was a knock at the front door.

  I picked up the pistol, tried unsuccessfully to quiet Solace down, then made my way to the living room and peeked out the window. It was Jake Snow.

  “Whew,” I said, “hello Jake. Come on in.”

  “Holy God, what’s going on, Tom?” he asked, after he slid in the doorway and saw my face and the gun in my hand. “What’s wrong? You look terrible, like you’ve seen a closet full of ghosts.”

  Extending my hand toward the chairs, I asked him to have a seat.

  We both sat down, and after I rubbed my forehead a few times, I told him, “Things are not good, Jake.” Then I filled him in on everything, beginning with the truck stopping outside the driveway. By the time I finished, the concern on Jake’s face had deepened and he said, “Damn it, Tom, I hate like hell to have to tell you this, but I have some more bad news. Take a look at this. It’s the only mail I’ve got for you today.”

  He then handed me a post card; a plain white post card. Atop of my address on the front, scrawled in red ink, it read, Mr. Thomas Soles c/o Darius McClure.