She Rides Shotgun

by Jordan Harper

  Houser got his hands on his skull again. Park got the loop of wire around the sheriff’s head. He yanked both hands so the loop tightened on Houser’s neck. Blood squirted hot against his skin. Houser poured all over him. He squealed and splashed. Park made noises too. He shared the man’s death with him. He watched the soul flutter out of the man. He saw his last breath like a white puff of smoke. He heard the ghost fly by. When it was done he left the body for the desert to take.

  He saw a shack on the top of a nearby hill. He moved toward it. He found a road that led to the shack. He stepped onto the road. The night caught fire, lit from the path below, twin headlights blinding him. The car door opened. The fat deputy came out, shotgun raised, all of him a streak against the night to Park’s eyes.

  “Where’s the sheriff?” Jimmy asked.

  “Everywhere,” Park said. He wore a bib of blood, black in the moonlight, still warm from Houser’s body. “He’s right here for sure.”

  “You bugfuck motherfucker,” Jimmy said. He raised the shotgun. Park walked down the hill toward Jimmy. The barrel of the gun was a swimming hole. He was ready to dive in. His feet shuffled in the dirt. Everything music. Everything strings.

  “Ain’t no way you could have killed him,” Jimmy said.

  “Weird, right?” Park laughed. The air he sucked in tickled his lungs.

  Jimmy kicked Park down at the side of the road. He stepped back into the road and raised the shotgun. He had a smile on his face. Park smiled back. He meant it. He opened his arms up into the night. He felt every grain of oxygen in the air, the warmth of every pinprick of light from dead stars overhead. He wondered if he would feel the buckshot pass into him, join him, and separate him. He hoped so.

  A hiss like sudden rain came through the night.

  They both turned to face the thing rolling down the hill. A car rolling with no headlights. The car hit Jimmy head-on. It knocked him into the air. He came back down headfirst. His body twisted on itself in a way that a body can’t do. The brake lights of the rolling car glowed red. Dust kicked up as the car slid to a stop.

  Charlotte Gardner sat behind the wheel. Polly McClusky sat shotgun. She had the face of someone twice her age. She had a gun pointed at Park. Park still had his arms in the air from seconds before, when it had been the deputy who had the gun on him. One gunman traded for another. So goddamn funny he had to laugh.

  “Polly?”

  She looked at him. Emotions like roiling fish on her face.

  “You’re the guy,” she said, her voice so different from when they’d spoken on the phone. “The to-help guy. Why are you here?”

  “I’m here to help,” he said. He walked forward. He saw Polly held her bear in her lap, its stomach split open.

  “Oh no,” he said.

  A weird frog croak came up from the backseat of the car. Polly tilted her head toward the shape.

  “He wants to talk to you.”

  “The frog?”

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing.”

  Park walked to the back of the car. The backseat was gore. Nate McClusky’s life was spread out all over the seat. It glowed with it. Nate McClusky was cut up, oozing, one eye sliced out.

  Nate took him in with his one eye.

  “You get him?” Nate asked. “The sheriff?”

  Park nodded yes before he could even start to figure out if it was a thing he should admit to.

  “You put it on me,” Nate said.

  “What?”

  “Killing the sheriff. You pin that on me.”

  Nate lay back with a smile on his face. It occurred to Park that he was supposed to arrest Nate now, but it was just a thought and he paid no mind to it.

  “We’ve got to go,” Polly said to Charlotte.

  “Are you going to be okay?” Polly asked Park.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Thanks for asking.”

  “We got to get him to a hospital,” Polly said. “Thank you for looking for me. You don’t have to anymore.”

  He watched them head down the road into Hangtree. Then they were gone and Park was alone in the desert. And he stood there next to the cop car. He took off his bloody shirt and he realized he was cold and he climbed in the deputy’s car and he drove away.

  Part IV

  Perdido

  California

  46

  POLLY

  BIG BEAR

  It hurt her to look at him. Real pain at the center of her chest. Her heartbeat sounded like save him save him save him save him.

  He had refused a hospital. He’d told Charlotte to drive them someplace safe, a place to hide. She’d steered them into the mountains, to a place called Big Bear. Evergreens like wooden fortress walls stood on either side of the road. Cold mountain air made Polly shiver. They found a cheapo resort with cabins in the woods. They moved her dad in under cover of darkness, Charlotte and Polly on either side of him to keep him upright. Little noises forced themselves out of his mouth as he moved. She knew how little he wanted her to hear them, so she pretended that she didn’t.

  Charlotte went out to find food. Polly washed her dad’s wounds. She was a good nurse. She’d done it before.

  “It’s over,” she said, rubbing salve on a cut across his chest. “We can take you to a hospital.”

  “Not yet. If I get caught now, I’ll be dead soon. That Boxer fellow seemed all right, but maybe not the type to pay a debt to a dead man. I have to stay hidden until Craig Hollington is dead.”

  “Please,” Polly said. “Please. I don’t want you to die.”

  “Just take care of me,” he said. “You’re the best at it.”

  “And then can we go to Perdido?”

  “And then Perdido.”

  They lived off white-bread cheese sandwiches and gas station tamales. There was a computer at the lodge. Charlotte went there every day to check the news. Polly’s dad was front page for a while. There was a manhunt. Detective Park was declared a hero. Nate McClusky was a cop killer on the loose. Park did them a favor and didn’t mention Charlotte.

  Polly cleaned her dad’s wounds and cut his food. She stuffed cotton in the hole where his eye used to be. He said it didn’t hurt. He was lying, but that was okay.

  When it was just the two of them, her dad would talk and talk. Stories she’d never heard before, stories about their family. He told her about his brother Nick, and how he could ride a motorcycle on one wheel, and how he’d knocked out a man in the cage in eight seconds. She told him about fighting the dog, and he clapped his hands, and he took her face in his rough hands and said he was proud, and his one eye watered and then her eyes did too.

  They told stories about Perdido. What they would do there. How Polly would turn brown in the sun. How her dad would become a great fisherman. How the bear would learn to surf.

  Her dad grew scar tissue. But not all the wounds closed. He burned to the touch. Charlotte bought him two canes so he could walk to the bathroom on his own. Once Polly saw him there, sitting down to pee with his shirt lifted. She saw the stab wounds, how black they were, and she had to look away to stop from going crazy.

  Charlotte sewed up the bear. Polly gave him to her dad, who needed him more than she did. The bear and he convalesced together. He learned to work the bear’s movements almost as good as Polly. He held the bear in his hands and made him move. He put the bear’s mouth to his bottle of water and had him drink. The bear’s paws flew to his crotch like I got to pee. Her dad stuck his finger between the bear’s legs so it stuck out the front and had the bear joyfully take a leak off the side of the bed. Polly’s cheeks went red and she laughed until the muscles of her stomach were weak and shaking. He laughed too, even though the laughing tore things open again.

  She could feel the fever in him, his body still fighting. Hot purple streaks on the skin around the wound.

  Polly woke one night. She saw Charlotte mopping her dad’s brow.

  “It’s getting worse,” Charlotte said.

  “I’m not going a
nyplace until the deal’s done.”

  Charlotte made a sound, not with her mouth, just her throat. Polly watched her wipe her face.

  A few days later Polly sat watching him sleep when Charlotte came through the door.

  “He’s dead,” Charlotte said. “They got him.”

  The news had just broken. A maximum security murder in Pelican Bay. Blades tied to broom handles had speared Crazy Craig dead in his cell. He bled out overnight. A massive lockdown, statewide, to prevent chaos.

  Her dad smiled. He hadn’t been sleeping after all. He opened his one good eye and took Polly’s hand in his and said, “Just one more thing to do. I got to sit down with them.”

  “Why?” Polly had a crazy thought that she could swallow him to keep him safe, that it was the only way to do it.

  “To let them know I’m still out here. Still dangerous.”

  “No,” Polly said. “You can’t. You’re hurt too bad.”

  “It’s got to be done,” he said. “So I’m going to do it. After everything you did to save me, you got to let me do this little thing. This last thing.”

  “Then Perdido,” she said.

  “Then Perdido.”

  47

  POLLY

  BIG BEAR/CASTAIC

  She’d thought she knew what strong meant. She’d thought he’d shown her already. But she had been wrong.

  He got out of the bed with the help of the two canes. Charlotte and Polly helped him shower. His body was muscle and scars, red veins lacing through his skin. He got dressed. He put their last pistol in the back of his pants. He moved so slow. They put on his drugstore eye patch. They loaded up the car. Nate shambled to the car like a grandpa. He fell into the backseat, breathing hard, wet with sweat.

  Polly climbed into the backseat with him. Charlotte drove down the hills once more, back toward Los Angeles.

  When they got close to Castaic, the place of the meet, Charlotte pulled over at a rest stop so Nate could change his shirt. The one he had been wearing was spotted with soaks of blood. He wouldn’t let Polly look at him while he changed shirts. She turned her back to him. She looked at the reflection of him in the car window. All the cuts all over him just looked like gutters dug into him.

  They’ll see how weak he is. They’ll see it and they’ll fight us and we’ll lose.

  The meeting was in a truck stop diner. It wasn’t the truck stop Polly and Nate stopped at that forever ago, but it was close enough that it felt familiar to Polly.

  Charlotte parked in the back.

  “I’ll get the canes,” she said as she put the car in park.

  “No canes,” he said. “I’m walking in.”

  “I’ll help you then,” Charlotte said.

  “They see you helping me, we’re all dead.”

  “Jesus pete, you can’t—”

  He lifted a hand like be quiet.

  “They can’t know how hurt I am,” he said.

  “They’ll take one look at you and know.”

  “You think I don’t know that?”

  “So let me—”

  “Polly comes with me. You stay here.”

  Polly came out first. She moved around to his door. She watched him breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth. He opened his eye. He stood up holding the car. Little muscles in his face twitched. He smoothed them out. He took deep breaths. His shoulders came up. His face cleared the pain. He looked as strong as he had in front of her school, a million years ago. He smiled at her and she couldn’t see anything behind the smile but strength. He tucked his pistol into the front of his pants.

  “Bring the bear,” he said. “He’s good for us.”

  They walked into the truck stop together. The bear dangled in Polly’s hand. Her dad rested his hand on her shoulder, not for support, but somehow the other way, like he had so much strength to spare that he could pass it on to her.

  He walked into the restaurant strong and sure. Polly followed him. The sounds of the world seemed so loud to her now. Their feet, the hum of people throughout the diner talking. The world more real than real. Polly followed him to a back table where two men sat, one Hispanic and one white. brown pride on one’s bicep, white power across the other’s throat.

  “You sit down first,” he whispered to her as they got closer to the table. She scooted in across from the two men. Nate scooted in next to her. She knew the cuts on his stomach must burn with the motion. He didn’t give it away.

  The one with the Brown Pride tattoo started to talk. Her dad cut him off by putting his pistol on the table and covering it with the newspaper.

  “The deal was no weapons,” the white one said.

  “But you’ve got one anyway,” her dad said. “I’m just being upfront with you. Now let’s get down to business.”

  The Brown Pride guy talked first. He said that Crazy Craig was dead. Somebody named Moonie was running things for Aryan Steel on the inside now, and that’s the way it was going to stay. Polly repeated names to herself, so she’d remember them if her dad wanted to talk about it later. Brown Pride said Aryan Steel had agreed to lift the greenlight on Nate and Polly.

  Her dad nodded like good.

  “Let me see the kite,” he said.

  The White Power guy passed a handwritten note across the table to her dad. He glanced at it and then pushed it over to Polly.

  “Read it,” he said, then turned to the other men. “My eyes ain’t quite what they used to be.”

  To all the solid soldiers on the block

  Or in the street

  The greenlight on Nate McClusky is lifted

  The greenlight on Polly McClusky is lifted

  There will be no payback

  There will be no retribution

  On penalty of death

  There will be peace

  Steel Forever, Forever Steel

  Moonie, president

  When she was done reading, he nodded like good. He smiled big and broad. Polly wondered where he’d put his pain. Where he’d put his weakness.

  “We’re going down to Mexico,” he told the men. “At least until the heat dies down. But before I go, I need you to hear one thing. Polly might come back from Mexico before I do. And if a hair gets harmed on my daughter’s head, well, then, I’ll just find my way back from Perdido. Y’all won’t see me coming. You understand what I’m saying?”

  The White Power one looked at her dad like he was the monster under the bed.

  “Moonie’s spread the word,” he said. His tough guy mask wasn’t very good. Polly wondered if he hadn’t been enough places yet. She figured hers was better. “The greenlight’s lifted. We’re cool.”

  Her dad picked up the newspaper with the pistol under it.

  “Then we’re through here. Polly.”

  He touched her on the shoulder. His hand felt like he’d run it under the cold tap. She kept the shock of it off her face. They walked out of the restaurant without looking back.

  On the way back to the car he threw away the newspaper into a trash can. It thunked loud. Too loud, Polly thought. They were halfway to the car before she realized what it was. He’d thrown away his gun.

  He climbed into the backseat. He sat up strong. He patted the seat next to him.

  “Want you on my good eye’s side,” he said.

  She climbed in next to him.

  “We good?” Charlotte asked.

  “We good,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  Polly watched the traffic behind them as Charlotte steered them back toward L.A.

  “I don’t think there’s anybody,” Polly said. The bear shook his head like me either.

  “I think you’re right,” he said. “I think we’re home clear.”

  And before she could even agree he tilted over like a statue being pulled down.

  “Daddy—”

  “The glass feels good on my face is all. I need a rest.”

  He reached over to her without lifting his head. He squeezed her arm.

  “Will t
hey do what they say?” she asked.

  “It’s not what they said that matters. But the fear’s worth plenty. The fear on that whiteboy’s face. I just wanted to look into a face and make sure it was fear I saw. And that’s what I saw. It’s over.”

  They crested the San Fernando Mountains so that the bowl of Los Angeles hung beneath them. The sun set behind it. The tall buildings of downtown were backlit with impossible colors, pinks and oranges and reds. The sky behind Los Angeles burned.

  “Wow,” Polly said.

  “I’ve lived all over,” Charlotte said. “You can’t beat Southern California for sunsets.”

  “It’s ’cause we’re so dirty,” Polly said.

  “How’s that?”

  “Dirty air,” she said. “Light bouncing off the trash in the air, it splits up the light. Makes it pretty.”

  “It’s a hell of a thing,” her dad said. But Polly saw his eye was closed.

  As they rolled down the mountain it felt to Polly like the car fell toward L.A., coming down smooth, like how she imagined flying must go, as the dirty skies burned beautiful and faded to purple and black.

  They were back from the skies and on the streets of Hollywood before she tried to wake her dad up.

  48

  PARK

  STOCKTON

  He’d known where Polly was for a while—when she’d surfaced in Stockton, it had made the news, of course, and if he’d still been on the force he would have been one of the battalion of cops who interviewed her. But he didn’t go. Not for the month he spent on medical leave, or the six months after that he took to get himself out of the police force with a good chunk of his pension.