by Blake Banner
I had finished my bacon and eggs and I was on my second cup of coffee when the sheriff came in. Blueberry greeted him with all the enthusiasm of a tequila hangover and gave him a cup of coffee, which he brought over to my table and sat opposite me.
“Sheriff Mitch Hanafin. Mind if I join you?”
I leaned back in my chair and studied his face. He was overweight and had the small, hard eyes of a greedy man.
“What’s on your mind, Sheriff?”
“Just wondering what a man like you is doing in a town like this.”
“What kind of man am I?”
“That’s what I am wondering, son.”
I smiled. “Used to come up here when I was a kid, two weeks every year. Just spending a few days remembering old times.”
“Does remembering old times include breaking men’s arms and stabbing them in the neck?”
I pulled out my cigarettes and offered him one. He took it and I flipped my Zippo to light it. I let him see my hand was steady. Then I lit my own.
“Are you referring to the brawl that occurred here last night, out in the street?”
“You know I am.”
I shook my head and gave a small laugh. “I had nothing to do with that, Sheriff. You surely can’t think that I, on my own, could take on four men like that and remain unscathed.” I showed him my hands. There were no bruises. If you break enough bricks with your fists, they don’t bruise when you hit something as soft as a jaw.
He gave his head a twitch. “It is kind of hard to believe, I grant you. What happened?”
“I was chatting with Blueberry at the bar, and those boys went outside to settle an argument.” I shrugged. “And that’s all I know.”
He knew I was lying, but he couldn’t see where the lie was. So he just nodded and asked me, “You planning on staying in town much longer?”
“I plan to be gone by the day after tomorrow.”
“Sounds like a plan to me. If you can make it sooner, so much the better. Strangers are not all that welcome here. Think of it as a closed community.”
I watched him stand and sucked on my cigarette, squinting at him through the smoke. “I will keep that in mind, Sheriff. Thanks for the advice.”
He offered me a thin, humorless smile. “Oh, it ain’t advice.” He hitched up his pants and left without paying for his coffee.
I looked at Blueberry. “He doesn’t pay?”
She shook her head. “Some people don’t pay.”
“Who else doesn’t pay?”
“Junkers and Maddox.”
“Who are Junkers and Maddox?”
“Junkers is the foreman at the farm. Maddox is the manager.”
“How often do they come in?”
She shrugged. “Junkers, maybe once a week on Saturday. Maddox, if he’s in town.”
I stood and took my plate and cup to the bar. “Point them out to me next time they’re in.”
I stepped out into the chill sunshine and climbed in my car. I lowered the windows to let the cool morning air in and headed slowly back toward the cabin, thinking about the Alfa farm, Junkers and Maddox, and Marni. Was it a coincidence that Alfa and Omega were at either extreme of the alphabet? Was it a coincidence that Marni had come here? Had she, by leaving that picture on the board in the kitchen, deliberately brought me here so I could see the farm?
I turned right at the junction and climbed the hill. As I was approaching the fork for the cabin, I pulled off the road and tucked the Zombie behind some trees, where it was hidden by the undergrowth. Then I climbed the rest of the way on foot.
When I arrived, the place was still and silent, aside from the birdsong and the odd rustle up in the canopy. I thought about searching the woods, but decided against it. As I had decided before—she would let me know when the time was right. I climbed the steps to the porch and found the door open, like last time. Inside, not much had changed. Some plates had been used and washed, and left to dry in the rack. Some embers were smoking in the fireplace, and there was a smell of soot. On the table there was a sketch pad, with a picture of a tree. I felt a single, hot thud in my chest. I knew the tree. It was the tree where she used to hide her treasures when we were kids.
It was a steep climb through dense woods and a thick undergrowth of ferns. At times I had to use my hands to haul myself up. The higher I went, the more the woodland was broken up by sudden outcrops of rocks and boulders that made the progress hard and slow. It had been over ten years, but I still remembered the way.
Finally, after almost an hour of climbing, I came out to a small plateau. To my left there was a deep, wooded gorge, and beyond it the high peak of Green Mountain. Ahead of me, the plateau fell away, among rocks and shrubs, and rose again to a bald, stone peak, about three hundred yards distant.
It was invisible until you got there, but there was a small cave—our Hole in the Wall—just beneath the peak. I felt a stab of something that might have been excitement, and might have been fear, that Marni would be there.
I pressed on.
It took me another twenty minutes of scrambling and stumbling, but eventually I got there and lowered myself down to the small hollow where the cave was. I pulled out my pencil flashlight and shone it inside. She wasn’t there, but there were signs that she had been: some cushions, blankets, the cold remains of a small fire.
I turned. A little farther down the escarpment, shielded from view by rocks to the east and the wooded slopes on the north, west and south, was an ancient pinion pine, about forty feet high, with a thick tangle of foliage around its base. That was what had made it an ideal hiding place for her treasures.
I scrambled down, half sliding on my ass over the loose, dry earth, to the relatively flat area where the tree grew. Lying on my belly, I crawled in among the lower branches to the hollow she had cleared on the inside. I recognized the spot, close in among the roots, where she had dug a hole to store her things. I knelt there and dug with my fingers.
It was three inches below the surface. A simple piece of board which I levered up. And beneath it a hole, slightly more than a foot square and two feet deep. There were stones I recognized from when she was a kid, a couple of fossils, a rune I had carved for her on a pebble and strung with a leather thong, and a diary. The diary was new. That was why she had asked me to come here. For the diary.
I removed the Sig 232 from my boot and put it in the hole, with a spare magazine. Then I took out the diary, put back the board, and carefully covered it with dirt. After that, I slid out and made my way back toward the car.
The thought kept going over and over in my mind. She wanted me to find the diary. Not her, the diary.
Why?
Seven
It was four in the afternoon by the time I got back to the diner in Turret. The tables were empty and stood in gloomy shadows among dusty beams of light from the windows. Blueberry seemed to have recovered from her hangover, and draped herself around me as I walked in. I gave her a kiss and said, “How about you fix me a hamburger and a very cold beer?”
She rolled her eyes and pranced into the kitchen. I sat at the bar and she called out, “You gonna tell me what you’re doing here?”
“No.”
“How about if I tell you about the two guys who were askin’ about you?”
She poked her head out of the kitchen door, smiling. I shook my head. “Still no.”
“You tell me, I tell you.”
I sighed. “I’ll tell you this much. Those men are killers. If they think you know anything of what I know, they will torture you and kill you. Your smart move is to tell me who they are and where they are staying. When they come around, act like you don’t know me. And never again try to find out why I am here.”
She became serious and went back in the kitchen. A couple of minutes later she put a giant burger in front of me and cracked me an ice cold beer.
“They were city types. Designer survival clothes, Timberland boots, Armani hunting hats. You know the type?”
I nodded.
“They had a Wrangler Unlimited. Said they were here for the hunting, and had I seen their pal.”
“What did you tell them?”
“I said I didn’t know. I said we get a few people coming through summer and autumn. So he described you. Said your name was Lacklan, you were driving a souped-up Mustang and you might be with your wife.”
“What did you say?”
“I said someone like that had rolled through couple of days ago, but they’d moved on.”
“You shouldn’t have done that. You should have told them I was here.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I’m serious, Blueberry. These men are dangerous. You put your life at risk.” She went a little pale. “When they come back, I want you to call them over, ask them if I am their buddy. You understand?”
She looked a bit sick. “What will they do to you?”
“Nothing. I’m going to kill them.”
“Jesus, Lacklan! What the fuck?”
“Where are they staying?”
“They said they were in Salida, but they wanted to know if I had any rooms. I said I was booked up at the moment. They said they’d be back this evening, and maybe I’d have room for them then. They said it kind of menacing. We’ve got a couple of cabins up the road, but I didn’t want to tell them…”
I thought for a moment. “Where do you live?”
“I told you…”
“No, your real home. Where do you go on the weekend?”
“Salida, with my folks.”
“When these men come back, give them one of the cabins. If they want to eat, serve them dinner. Then go. Go home. By tomorrow they’ll be gone. Now, show me the cabin you’re going to give them.”
After I’d looked at the cabin I went up to my room to have a shower and read the diary I had recovered from the tree. It wasn’t current. It was from a couple of years after she had graduated, while she was doing her doctoral thesis. A lot of it was just reflections about her work and comments about colleagues. But, as I read through the pages, I also noticed how her earlier naïve, volatile concern about the environment as a whole gradually began to take shape as a focused, well-informed passion. And also how she gradually became more aware of her father and how he had blazed the trail for her. Even when we were kids, she had held him on a pedestal, though she had barely known him. He had inspired her and represented everything that was good and noble.
It was ironic that as her father had been her inspiration and she had devoted her life to following him, so mine had represented for me everything that was the worst in humanity, and I had devoted my life to distancing myself from him. My father had killed hers, and now I was fighting to save her life, so that her father’s spirit and work could live on.
I slept for an hour, dressed, and went down at seven, as darkness was drawing in. There were a couple of tables occupied and I could hear more trucks arriving outside. The place was starting to fill up. Some of the the men at the tables glanced over as I came in, but other than that they ignored me, which suited me fine. Blueberry was cooking. I went behind the bar, took a beer from the fridge and threw some coins on the cash register. I leaned in the kitchen and told Blueberry to make me a steak. Then I went to sit in the farthest corner, to wait for the hunters from Salida.
I didn’t have to wait long. They rolled in at just before eight, and they were exactly how she had described them. Only, to me, as well as being city types with designer hunting gear, they had professional killer written all over them. I knew the type well. They’d done a few years in the military, then graduated to mercenaries in Africa, burning villages and killing women and children. Then they got cushy jobs with a ‘security agency’ contracting for the CIA on jobs that were too dirty even for spooks. They were noisy and aggressive, and believed themselves above the law. They were probably right. Depends whose law.
I studied them, how they moved, where their weaknesses were. The smaller, leaner one sat at a table. He had sallow skin and black hair. He was hard and flexible. You could tell he worked out a lot. He was laughing as his pal leaned on the bar, shouting to Blueberry.
“Hey! Sweet cheeks! Your favorite hunters are back. Tell me you got a room for us!”
He was big. Six-four at least. He had big shoulders and strong arms and legs. But he also had a big belly. He was greedy and relied too much on his muscular strength. He was going bald and had a rim of sandy hair from ear to ear across the back of his head.
Blueberry came out of the kitchen carrying two plates of food. Her cheeks were flushed, either from cooking or from fear. She was smiling breathlessly.
“Hey guys! I’ll do better than that!” She walked past the big guy toward a table with four farmers sitting at it, talking over her shoulder as she went. “I found your friend!”
The two men looked at each other and then back at her. The big guy said, “No kidding. Where is he?”
She put down the plates in front of the farm boys, said, “Enjoy your meal,” then turned and beamed at me across the room.
“Why, he’s right there! I’m surprised you ain’t seen him already!”
They turned to look at me with dangerous leers on their faces. Blueberry hurried back into the kitchen as the big guy said, “Well, hello there, Lacklan. I hadn’t seen you, hiding there in the corner.” His friend stood and they approached the table. “Mind if we join you?”
They pulled out the chairs and sat. The sallow one spoke for the first time.
“I’m Smith, this is Jones. We’ve been looking for you.”
Smith and Jones, cute. “How did you find me?”
Jones smiled all over his big face. “Well, we have our ways, Lacklan. Have you found Marni?”
I studied his face a moment, then Smith’s, wondering which was in charge and which was most dangerous. “Who do you work for?”
Smith said, “You don’t seem to understand the game, Lacklan. We ask, you answer.”
Blueberry emerged from the kitchen with my steak. She looked real scared. She put it in front of me and I asked her what time it was. She looked at her watch. “Eight fifteen.”
I nodded. She knew what it meant. She had forty-five minutes. Then she had to leave. She turned to Jones and handed him a key. “I got you a swell little cabin, right on the cross roads. Y’all gonna be real cozy there.”
He leered at her. “Well thank you, sweet cheeks. You going to join us there for a party later?”
She giggled hysterically and fled back to the kitchen. I cut into the steak and stuffed a piece in my mouth. I spoke as I chewed.
“If you want information from me, you better be prepared to give me something in return.”
Jones said, “Like what?”
“I want money, and I want information.”
He was frowning. Clearly, he had not expected this. “How much money?”
I laughed. “Well, guys. They say silence is golden. How much do you think silence is worth?”
I cut at the steak again and watched the blood ooze onto the plate. They were staring. Smith said, “We were not told to negotiate. We were told to find you and find the girl.”
I chewed, tasting the blood, and took my time drinking from the bottle. I sighed as I put it down. “That’s the problem with employing assholes like you guys. Because things just got complicated for you, and you haven’t the intelligence to adapt. See? The girl has the information that your boss does not want the media to get hold of. I know where the girl is. So you think, ‘get Lacklan, get the girl.’ Simple. Only now Lacklan has gone and complicated things. Because he’s hidden the girl and he has acquired the information. This means your boss’ problem has increased exponentially. Now two people have the information, and two people can release it to the media, but you only know where one of those people is. Kill me, and you fuck up everything. The whole fucking thing explodes in your faces.”
They were staring at each other. They looked annoyed, even a little offended. This was not w
hat they were told to expect. I finished my steak and peeled a fresh pack of Camels, leaning back in my chair. I fished one out and took my time lighting it.
“What is the solution to this problem, gentlemen? It’s simple. It is the solution to all problems. Money. For the right money, you get the girl, and my guarantee of silence. But I need something else.”
Smith’s frown deepened. “What else?”
“I need you to give Maddox a message from me.”
“What?”
I smiled. It was too easy. “Tell him I know what he’s doing at the farm. My silence won’t come cheap.”
Jones looked pissed. He made to stand. “Come on. We need to call him.” He looked at me. “Where are you staying?”
“Here.”
“How did you know about Maddox?”
I was about to tell him I hadn’t, just to watch him squirm. Instead I said, “The girl. She knows a damn sight more than you think. And now, so do I.”
They stood and left. I looked at my watch. It was twenty to nine. I gave it ten minutes, then stood and pulled my Sig from under my arm. I walked to the bar and let off a round into the ceiling. Blueberry screamed and everybody turned to look at me.
“All right, gentlemen, nothing to be alarmed about. It is Wednesday, early closing. Please drink up and make your way home. Now. Drive careful.”
Within five minutes the bar was empty and the parking lot was full of reversing trucks and beams from headlamps like crazy lighthouses in the dark. Blueberry gave me a long, lingering kiss on the porch as the last of the cars pulled away. “I knew you were trouble. You are one scary son of a bitch. Please be careful.”
I shook my head. “No.”
She left.
Eight
I locked up and slipped out the kitchen door in back. The moon had not risen yet over the peaks to the east, and the sky was dark. Though the horizon was pale and I could hear coyotes baying in the distance. I took a moment to screw the silencer onto the Sig and slipped it into my waistband. Then I sprinted silently toward the cluster of trees that surrounded the crossroads. There I dropped on my belly and fitted the night vision goggles over my eyes. There wasn’t a lot to see. The cabin was dark except for one window with a dim light in it at the front of the house.