Dark Places

by Reavis Z. Wortham

  “All right. Short, graying black hair of a man in his late thirties. Cowlick. Two eyebrows, also black. Brown eyes. A nose. Two ears that need trimming, I guess. Lips, and a chin with a dimple.”

  “That’s about right. Now, describe me.”

  “A guy with long hair.”

  “More detail. Lots of detail, more than you used on yourself, but don’t stop at my chin.”

  James growled in frustration, low in his throat. He drew a deep breath. “Long black hair, like an Indian.”

  “I am Indian, but you’re right. Keep going.”

  “Hippie hair, then. A scar across your forehead from the middle to your temple. Black eyebrows. Dark eyes. Indian cheekbones. No mustache or beard, though, like those hippies, but that’s because you’re Indian again. A nose that’s been broke before…”

  “Twice.”

  “Huh. Square chin with a horizontal scar in the cleft under your bottom lip and one on your ear. Wide shoulders. Some kind of necklace under your western shirt that needs washing better than the last time, but it was expensive when it was new. Shirt’s hanging outside your jeans.” He glanced down. “Levis and work boots.”

  Crow flexed his hands. “These?”

  “Big hands. Big knucks. Lots of scars.”

  Crow flipped them over.

  “Rough. Calluses.”

  “So between me and you, who do you think has more luck walking into a rough bar full of bikers?”

  “That don’t make no never mind.” James spread his hands, talking to the two images in the mirror, as if Crow wasn’t standing right beside him. “I’m Pepper’s daddy.”

  “And I’m not. That makes me the best man for the job. I’m not mad. I’m not scared. I’m not worried. The minute you walk in the door and into a nest of Rattlers, they’ll know for sure that you don’t belong. If they just kick your ass, you’ll be lucky. They can do much, much worse.”

  “Ned has guns in the turtle hull.”

  “I’m sure he does. But a trunk full of guns won’t get it all done. One man can’t walk in a bar and start threatening people, or shooting. Hell, if they don’t kill you, the law will when they show up. And there’s no bet Pepper’s in there. Those guys hang out in bars, but they don’t live in them. What I need to do is find out where she is and I don’t need you in there with me to worry with.”

  “I don’t get it. Why are you doing all this for us?”

  Crow’s eyes went flat. “Trying to right a wrong. Ned, am I right, about him staying?”

  The old constable opened one eye. “He’s right, James. We don’t know this world, or them people. Let Crow go and come back and tell us what he’s found. Right now, I cain’t do nothin’, that’s for sure.”

  Crow spread his hands to punctuate the statement.

  “All right.” James plodded back to the table like an old man, worn out and aching. “Go. Tell us what you find.”

  “Oh, you’re going with me. I need you to drop me off and wait. We might have to move fast.”

  Chapter Fifty-six

  “We’re turning off here.” The man Pepper knew as Jeff pulled his Oldsmobile station wagon into the parking lot of the Jackrabbit Curio Shop. A canvas water bag hung over the car’s front grill, a common sight on Route 66. Advertised by dozens of stores and trading posts along the route as emergency gear, the bags full of water stayed cool by condensation as they drove.

  His wife, Brenda, twisted around in the front seat. “We’re going to make some miles while the kids are asleep.” Behind Pepper, two pre-teens slept on a thick pallet of quilts covering their suitcases. “You be careful who you take rides from, honey.”

  Pepper threw the strap of her sack purse over her shoulder and slid out. “I will. Thanks for the ride.”

  The car pulled away and vanished. Pepper’s mouth was dry as cotton and she hoped they’d have a water fountain. Across the road, still another rough roadside stand sold hand-painted pots. The Indian family under the brush arbor watched with impassive expressions as she waited for a long moment, indecisive. It reminded her of the mom and pop vegetable stands back home, where the owners supplemented their income.

  The trading post museum was busy with travelers. The Navajo woman behind the counter barely glanced at one more kid fed up with The Establishment and passing through on her way to… somewhere. She went back to ringing up a cheap rock sample collection, three postcards, and an empty water bag similar to the one on the Oldsmobile.

  Pepper realized that it was mistake to come inside. The aroma of fresh popcorn and signs for ice cream bars and candy made her stomach grumble. She turned away from the corn popper and drifted aimlessly down the aisles without seeing any of the items. There was no water fountain. She was on her way out when a voice stopped her.

  “What can I do for you?” A chunky guy with a beer belly blocked the aisle, and the path to the door.

  “Nothing, thank you.” She tried to step around him.

  He didn’t move. “I think we need to talk.”

  Still not understanding, she shrugged. “Not really. I’m leaving.”

  “What do you have in the purse?”

  “Nothing.”

  “It’s heavier than nothing.”

  “I mean, there’s stuff in there, girl stuff.”

  “Anything else?”

  “What do you mean?”

  He’d somehow moved closer. “I mean is there anything else in there besides brushes and lipsticks?”

  “I don’t have any lipstick. I don’t wear makeup.”

  “Then show me.”

  “No.” Pepper’s famous anger rose. “Get out of my way.”

  Beer Belly didn’t move. “I think you took something that you didn’t intend to pay for. I want to see it.”

  “Why don’t you wish in one hand and spit in the other and see which one fills up the fastest? Who are you, anyway?”

  “The owner.” Beer Belly grabbed her arm. “I’ve seen you in here before, and I’m tired of you hippie shoplifters.”

  Pepper jerked her arm away. “I’ve never been here, and I haven’t stolen anything, either.”

  Moving faster than she could have imagined, Beer Belly snatched the thin strap off her shoulder and stripped it from her arm.

  “Hey!”

  As the shop full of customers watched, he blocked her reach and shook the contents onto a display of rubber tomahawks and plastic snakes. Pepper tried to shove around him to grab her purse, but he held her arm in a rough grip.

  He picked up the eagle feather Jonathan had given her. “There, you stole this feather off one of those displays.” He pointed to a line of cheap feathered headdresses and brightly colored felt pennants hanging on the wall. “Ethyl, call the police! I’m tired of these damned hippies stealing us blind.”

  “That’s no painted chicken feather. It’s real.” She pulled and he increased his grip. Pepper knew it was useless to argue that the feather was a gift.

  Her Uncle Cody once showed her how to break a hold and it came to her in a flash. She dropped and at the same time twisted her arm, pushed her elbows outward. Breaking free, she snatched the feather from his hand, hit the floor and shot under the display table to come up on the other side. Beer Belly grabbed for her over the table as she broke for the door.

  A tourist playing good Samaritan held his hands wide, thinking she’d stop. Pepper leaped like a deer, dodging the man’s grasp and landed on top of a display of Kachina dolls barely out of Beer Belly’s reach. The decorated dolls crunched underfoot as she took two running steps toward the door and jumped. At that moment a customer came in and Pepper darted under the jangling bell.

  She hit the sidewalk in a sprint. A shout followed as she cut around a corner and disappeared.

  Chapter Fifty-seven

  The Black Cat Saloon sat outside of the Barstow city li
mits on an unincorporated, sun-blasted spit of sand beside the highway that shimmered even in the late October temperature. Crow smiled at the sight of two dozen Harley-Davidson motorcycles already in the desolate dirt lot. “Go on past and drop me off down there.”

  James took his foot off the accelerator and coasted onto the shoulder.

  Crow opened the door. “I didn’t want anyone in the bar to see me get out. Turn around after I get inside and pull up on the side of the road, like you’re having car trouble, but not so close they can see you from the inside. Be ready. I might come out a-runnin’.”

  He hiked back to the Black Cat. The front door gaped open and the dark interior was worn, and old, and dirty, smelling of mildew and spilled beer. A loud rooftop water cooler rattled and blew damp air into the bar. Crow stopped inside the door to let his eyes adjust to the darkness crammed with loud music.

  He threaded his way across the gritty floor and ordered a Miller High Life. The bartender popped the cap and set it on the bar in front of him. “You might want to drink that outside.”

  “That’d be against the law.”

  “It’d be safer.”

  “Thanks for the advice.”

  Several customers watched him take the bottle to an empty table. He sat with his back against the wall. Jefferson Airplane blared from a scratched jukebox on the other side of the room, filling the smoky air with “Somebody to Love.” Crow figured that song played about every half hour.

  Wearing filthy jeans and an equally dirty shirt underneath a sleeveless leather jacket, a skinny little bearded guy made of twisted steel rose from a table and pushed his way across the bar. Beard stopped in front of Crow, belched, and rolled his shoulders beneath the Devil Rattler jacket. “Do I know you?”

  Crow shook his head and tilted the bottle. “Nope. Never been here before.”

  “So what are you doing in our bar?”

  “Looking for someone.” He shrugged. “That’s about it.”

  “That’s our beer.”

  “I paid for it.”

  The man noticed the leather thong disappearing under Crow’s shirt, thinking it might hold a surfer’s cross. Even though Crow wasn’t wearing love beads, the biker identified him as one of the thousands of kids involved in the counter culture. “We don’t want you flower children in here.” He spoke the words with disgust. “This is a man’s bar. A bar for real men who ride bikes.”

  “I’d ride one if I had it. It’d sure beat riding my thumb.”

  The biker chuckled. “Maybe one of us will ride you and pull that pretty hair while we do it.”

  Crow watched to see what the rest of them were doing.

  They were watching him back.

  Jefferson Airplane gave way to Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth.” In an odd corner of his mind, Crow thought the song was incredibly appropriate.

  “I think you need to leave, now, while you can walk.”

  Crow gave the bottle a slight wave and sat it on the table. “Hey, I don’t want any trouble from you guys. I like bikes, and bikers. I’m hoping to find a friend of mine.”

  “Who?”

  Crow shrugged and raised his voice over the music. “I don’t see her. I was thinking I might ask one of the ladies in here if she’s been through.”

  Beard laughed. “He wants to talk to the girls. Hey, Griz. C’mere.” Beard jerked his thumb at another biker who was big as a bear, then turned back to Crow. “I got a deal for ya. This big bastard is Griz. Convince him that you’re okay, and you can ask the girls all the questions you want.” He laughed. “Hell, you can do anything you want with any one of them if Griz says you’re all right.”

  His clothes an exact copy of Beard’s, Griz bounced on his toes and moved around the table to sit beside Crow. He grinned wide underneath a swollen nose broken only a couple of days earlier. A hayseed teenager and his girlfriend had been at the wrong place in the wrong time when the Rattlers were in the mood to hassle someone.

  He picked up Crow’s mostly full bottle and took a drink. Letting the beer backwash into the bottle, he stuck his tongue down the neck, licked the top, and thumped it back down, allowing some of the beer to trickle out of his mouth and down his thick beard. He grinned wide at Crow and waited for a reaction.

  It came like a lightning strike.

  The brown bottle slammed across the bridge of Griz’s nose, breaking it again, and exploding in foam and glass shards. Griz’s head snapped against the cinderblock wall. While still seated, Crow threw an uppercut that popped his head against the wall a second time. Before the crowd could react, Crow hit him a third time with everything he had, driving the man out of the chair and onto the floor. He landed with a thud and lay on his back, groaning and cradling his bloody face.

  Crow shifted his gaze back to the bar full of standing bikers. “Well, that went sour pretty damned fast.”

  The room exploded.

  Crow became a black hole that sucked in all matter. Every male in the bar converged in a rage. Crow kicked the table toward their charge, splitting the flow. He threw a chair and the crush on his right piled up when the lead biker tangled in the legs.

  Crow slammed his fist into Beard’s face. The little guy had never been hit so hard in his life. He dropped like a rock. Moving like liquid mercury, Crow planted one foot on a chair and jumped on top of the bar. After only two running steps, a hand reached out and grabbed his boot, tripping him up. Instead of fighting the fall, Crow went with it like an acrobat, pitching forward and rolling into a complete flip. Bottles crashed. He felt glass cut deep through his shirt.

  Regaining his feet, Crow took three more steps down the bar, inches away from the reaching crowd. He leaped off the end, dodging as the bartender swung a sawed-off bat at his legs. The jump carried him into a short hallway leading toward the bathroom. A back door offered escape.

  Praying it was unlocked, he made a split second decision and hit it with his shoulder. It slammed open and Crow shot out into the sunshine. Ducking around the corner, the roar of a bike told him that running was out of the question. He stopped, ready for the next chapter when a raked Hardtail slid around the corner.

  A biker with hair dramatically shorter than the Rattlers’ motioned with his thumb. “Get on!”

  He had no time to think. Crow grabbed at the man’s shoulders like a cowboy leaping on a horse. The big engine roared as the back tire threw a rooster tail of red dust into the still air. Hands grappled at him, and someone snatched a hank of hair. Crow’s head jerked back when the hunk was ripped out by the roots.

  Eyes watering, Crow hung on as the Harley shot across the dirt parking lot, and onto the hot highway. “Shower down on it. They’re after us.”

  Instead of accelerating, the biker backed off the throttle while two highway patrol cars passed, heading in the opposite direction. The biker spoke over his shoulder. “No they won’t.”

  Crow twisted to watch the patrol cars sweep into the Black Cat’s parking lot in a boil of dust. It hit him that James wasn’t parked where he told him. In fact, the car wasn’t anywhere in sight.

  Crow gave his rescuer a pat. “Rocky, my man. Good to see you again, brother.”

  Rocky raised his voice to be heard over the engine. “You almost got your ass kicked in there.”

  “You were inside?”

  “Yep, in the corner by the door.”

  “So you left when the war started?”

  “Before. I’ve known you long enough to expect you’d either come out the front slow and easy, or out the back a-runnin’. Seems like I guessed right.”

  Crow noted the different colors on the back of the man’s jacket. “Outlaws?”

  “Yep.They’re from Detroit.”

  “How’d you get the jacket?”

  Rocky checked the highway and spoke loudly. “Joined up a while back. Some of the guys wanted t
o come with me when I got your call, but I told ’em I had to take a road trip to clear my head.”

  “They give you any trouble back there?”

  “Naw, those guys are pretty territorial, but they tolerated me. It’s been a long two days, waitin’ for you to show up. I found out pretty quick they aren’t my kind of people, though.”

  “Mine either. You can drop me off in town. I need to call back to the motel and find out where James went.”

  “James?”

  “Yeah, one of the guys I hitched up with.” Crow saw a telephone booth and pointed past Rocky so he could see. “Pull over there.”

  “Nope. I’m taking you where you want to go.”

  “Where’s that?”

  The Outlaw jerked a thumb. “Their house.” He accelerated toward Barstow. “You be ready to get in and out, though. We won’t have much time.”

  “I’m bleedin’ through the back of my shirt and somebody’s gonna notice. You have a spare on you?”

  Rocky pointed down and back. “Saddlebags.”

  They passed James’ sedan parked in front of a single-pump Gulf station. Crow recognized it, waved as they passed, and James pulled out to follow at a distance.

  Chapter Fifty-eight

  Cody met Anna at the new Lake Lamar overlook. Slamming her car door, she ran through the rain and joined him in the front seat. He pulled back on the highway and drove over the dam.

  Any other time, Cody would have told her to meet him at Leland Hale’s house to pick up Marty Smallwood, but he wanted the time to talk with her first.

  She flipped through papers in a file resting on her lap. “It didn’t take long to find out that Marty’s been working on the lake for the past couple of years, driving a dozer.”

  “That piece of the puzzle fits pretty good. Marty or John T. used the dozer to bury the car after they killed those men.”

  “That’s what I think. Freddy says they did the shooting, but he had a part in burying the Impala. I went by the Corps of Engineer’s office, but they didn’t have any idea where Marty is. Most of the trailers are gone now that they finished the job. The guy I talked to said they haven’t seen him, not since they started pulling the rigs out of the lake bottom when the water started to rise.”