The Elephant of Surprise

by Joe R. Lansdale

  The lake was littered with floating trees and all manner of windblown and rain-pushed debris. The boat rode rough and I wasn’t particularly skilled at driving it. A raccoon could have been trained to do better than I was doing, though it would have to be a smart raccoon.

  I could sometimes see cabins on shore, when my lights caught them or the lightning revealed them. They were all dark and lifeless.

  The lake was large, larger now due to all the storm waters, and I decided to push across it, try and find a place to dock, see if we could get help. Leonard tried his phone again, but no dice. He figured a tower was blown down.

  I thought of Brett and Chance and Reba, and I hoped they were okay. Was the house still standing? Was Buffy the Biscuit Slayer under the bed?

  I wished I were under the bed.

  On through the rainy night and over the leaping water we went, and soon we were on the far side of the lake. In the lights from our boat I could see the water had risen far above the shoreline, and I feared there were hidden docks under it, so I tried to ease in, pulling back on the throttle. It was a good thing I did, because we bumped up against something that gave the boat a jolt.

  Leonard went outside and leaned over the railing with a flashlight that he’d found in the wheelhouse. He came back inside, said, “There’s limbs everywhere, and I mean big limbs. There’s no way you’re going to slide it in here.”

  I backed the boat off and gradually swung it around, and with my lack of experience it wasn’t any harder than trying to turn a dead whale.

  Back on the open water, we went along for a while, and finally the rain ceased, and the sky lightened some, and after a while we could see a star or two peeking through strips of dark rain-packed clouds. Then I saw lights suddenly pop on along the shoreline. Houses were visible now. The lights made them look warm. The electric company had been hard at work.

  I eased toward the shoreline there and found a place I could run the boat aground. I throttled it up big-time and shot it forward. It bounced on the water like the lake was made of hard concrete. The boat went onto the shore even as I throttled it back; it was too late to make a comfortable nose-in landing, and the bumping water helped jump us onto a patch of mud. The bumping was hard enough to knock Leonard down and hard enough to make my teeth bang together and nearly cause my knee to go out from under me.

  I killed the engine, and we went down and turned on the cabin light, found our girl still sleeping, quite comfortably. She hadn’t even been shaken out of the bed.

  Leonard went through the little closet down there, found a pair of men’s pants and a rain poncho.

  “You remember all I did was put pants on her,” Leonard said.

  “Gotcha.”

  “You can turn your head, Hap.”

  “I was going to. What about you?”

  “I’m gay and I’m putting the pants on. I don’t get excited by naked women. I want to double note that.”

  I turned my back as Leonard worked her pants on and pulled the yellow rain poncho over her head. I turned around again as she groaned and her eyes opened.

  She started fighting immediately but then must have realized who Leonard was, remembered he had thrown her in the back of the car in the first place. She looked over at me. I could see her swole tongue. It looked like there was a pale, stuffed sock in her mouth. She tried to talk, but her words were like cars trying to get around a too-narrow pass in the mountains. They tumbled off into sounds that meant nothing.

  “Take it easy,” I said.

  “You can zip yourself up,” Leonard said. “Whoever those pants belong to was a lot bigger than you, but it beats traveling around with your butt hanging out.”

  It was then that she realized she had been wearing nothing but a hospital gown. She reached under the poncho and clutched at it, gave me a confused look.

  “You were in the hospital,” I said. “Some folks came for you. Not nice folks. They wanted to shoot you.”

  “And us, I might add,” Leonard said.

  “Are you in pain?” I said.

  She shook her head gently.

  “I have some over-the-counter pain stuff. I can mash it up and maybe you could drink it.”

  She shook her head again.

  “All right, so next thing we do is get the hell out of here.”

  16

  Considering people were trying to kill us, we hesitated to leave the shotgun and the rifle, but finally decided we had lost our pursuers, at least for now, and the best thing for us to do was to head out and make for the highway. It had to be out there somewhere.

  We kept the handguns, tucked them under our wet shirts. We left the boat and started hiking out, the girl walking now but doing a weak job of it. Still, it beat carrying her.

  We didn’t stop by houses and ask for help. It had been a long time since you could knock on someone’s door and ask for assistance and get it. No one trusted anyone these days.

  There was a trail from the lake between two cabins, and we took that. Some dogs barked at us. I glanced down the shoreline and saw more lights coming on in lakefront homes.

  We followed the trail to a little road that was an exit for those who lived along the lake. In short time we began to hear a buzzing sound, and then the sound grew louder. We came out on the edge of the highway. There were trucks there, people working, lots of lights. The electric company restoring power.

  I went over and talked to one of the workers, a little Hispanic guy with a yellow hard hat. Others came over to see what we were about. They gave us some water, which even the girl managed to drink around her fat tongue. Then they called the cops for us over their radio. Before too long, perhaps an hour, a car came out and parked near the truck we were leaning on, the girl sitting inside of it.

  The driver’s door of the car opened and someone got out.

  It was Manny.

  17

  We were dry and warm and had coffee and sandwiches that a short, stout cop named Alton had bought for us. He brought the sandwiches in a couple of bags and stood around, holding a white bakery box under his arm. He smiled at us.

  Leonard and I ate and felt better, but the girl couldn’t eat, not with that tongue. She did get some dry clothes, though, something Manny rustled up. Manny got a nurse over to the police station, thinking the hospital might still be unsafe, and a jail cell with an open door and a soft bunk became the girl’s hangout.

  The girl had got some fluids in her, thanks to the nurse, and now she was asleep again with an IV hooked up to her. We knew nothing more than we had when we first found her on the road, except some people wanted her tortured and dead. Right now, they didn’t like me and Leonard too much either, but my guess was they had no idea who we were. Just a couple of meddlers.

  “I think we’ll keep her here for a bit,” Manny said. “She seems stable enough. Then we have to consider if we’ll send her back to the hospital with more cops to watch her. We have your descriptions of the shooters you saw, and that helps.”

  “These guys,” Leonard said, “they strike me as professional, maybe ex-military. One of them, he’s like a kung fu rabbit. Me and Hap, we’re trained, we’re pretty good, but this guy is crazy good and acrobatic. Not that big a guy either, but he didn’t mind coming after both of us at the same time.”

  “And he damn near beat us,” I said.

  “I don’t know about that,” Leonard said.

  “Thing is,” Manny said, “he doesn’t know who either of you are. That’s to your advantage.”

  “What I was thinking,” I said. “But we don’t actually know how many of them there are and who they are connected to.”

  Alton was standing in the doorway, a shoulder against the door frame. He watched us talk and eat, still with the white box under his arm. He had one of those sad faces, like a hound dog with a stomach ailment.

  “For them, we were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” I said. “They weren’t taking names. Damn. What about the lady at the hospital? She make it?”


  Manny shook her head. “Neither she nor the officer survived.”

  “Guys did the shootings were sure of themselves. Me and Leonard, we had a streak of luck.”

  “Bad luck,” Leonard said.

  “Neither of you are dead,” Manny said. “There’s some good luck in there someplace.”

  “You have a point,” Leonard said.

  “Here’s what I think,” she said. “Since they don’t know who you are, you’re out of this. You can go home and put your feet up. My guess is the only person they really want is her. You were just in the way. When she wakes up, I’m going to get her a writing pad, ask some questions.”

  “I could use some rest,” I said.

  “Me too,” Leonard said.

  “You got a lot more explaining to do,” Manny said. “Breaking into a cabin, stealing a boat. Taking the girl from the hospital. But it’s all logical survival stuff.”

  “What about whoever was dead in that cabin?” I said.

  “We’re looking into it. And by the way, I am the acting chief until Hanson gets back from his trip. It was decided last night.”

  “A little promotion,” I said.

  “Temporary,” she said.

  “What time is it?” I said.

  Manny hesitated. She wasn’t sure. She looked at Alton.

  “Late morning,” Alton said.

  We had been in there since before daybreak, telling Manny all that had happened, all that we’d seen.

  “I’m hitting the bricks again,” Alton said. “At least where I can still see bricks, concrete. Lot of water out there. I got to put this up first.” Alton lifted the box under his arm to show us what he was putting away, stepped out and went down the hall.

  “Alton’s all right,” Manny said. “He’s new, comes from a little cop shop somewhere in Louisiana, I think. Don’t remember exactly. Transferred here a few months back. He’ll do fine.”

  “Glad to hear it,” I said.

  “Poor guy, got a sick kid, and I don’t mean with the flu. Really sick, some kind of neurological disease. Costs a lot to take care of his daughter, Ginger’s her name, I think. He has another job being a part-time rent-a-cop, and his wife works two jobs, one as a baker. She’s the one bakes the pies he brings in. That’s what’s in the box. His rule is whoever wants some can have it, as long as he gets a slice.”

  “Maybe it’s a leftover from work,” Leonard said.

  Manny frowned at Leonard. “Whatever, he brings them in. But that poor kid, that poor family, even with insurance and additional government aid, and there’s less of that all the time, they can hardly make ends meet. Actually, I doubt they do meet.” She shook her head. “I think about having kids once in a while, but then I wonder if I have some genetic mess lurking inside me that will cause a kid to not be right, or the father has it, or we both have it. I don’t even date much these days. Well, Cason, who you know, but we mainly just shag and we’re both heavy on the protection. He likes to wear handcuffs and do it with a doughnut in his mouth.”

  “I don’t want to hear about it,” I said.

  “Wait,” Leonard said. “A doughnut?”

  “No, I was just trying to make Hap uncomfortable.”

  “Shit, he likes doughnuts,” Leonard said.

  Manny grinned. “Well, our relationship may not be about doughnuts, but like that old Haggard song, ‘It’s Not Love, But It’s Not Bad.’”

  Since we no longer had a car and neither of us had a working phone, I used the office landline to call Brett and ask her to pick us up. Right then there wasn’t anything I wanted more than being home in a nice dry and warm place that didn’t have cops in it.

  We stood outside the cop shop waiting for her to show up. There was a thin veneer of water over everything. We had learned from Manny that the outskirts of the town, the low places, were now deep water. We watched as Alton drove his cop car around the building, onto a side street.

  On the far side of the street, there was a swollen creek, and water had run out of it and was splashing over the curb. Some of the water was running down a drain near where the road met the highway. It was a lot of water, and that drain could hold only so much.

  When Brett arrived, we climbed in the car, and she turned in the seat and checked us out.

  She wrinkled her brow, said, “You boys really shouldn’t ever go outside. It always turns bad.”

  18

  When Leonard and I walked in, Buffy the Dog licked our faces and wagged her tail. Chance peppered us with questions, while Reba sat in a chair at the table where we were gathered and watched us like we were monkeys in a zoo. She was a twelve-year-old child, and she seemed way too wise and just a little evil. Leonard nearly always called her the Four-Hundred-Year-Old Vampire.

  After we told of our adventures, Reba said, “Y’all could have got yourself shot. And for some whitey.”

  “I’m a whitey,” I said.

  “Another whitey, standing right here,” Brett said.

  “Make that three,” Chance said.

  “I’m not in the club,” Leonard said.

  “Yeah,” Reba said. “All y’all white except Leonard, and he’s just an asshole, but you said she was real white.”

  “Albinism,” I said.

  “She got them pink eyes?”

  “Light eyes,” I said. “Not pink.”

  “I thought they had pink eyes, like a rabbit or some such.”

  “Albinism varies, Reba,” I said. “She’s a very pretty girl, or young woman. Frankly, she’s so small and young-looking, it’s hard to tell. She might be eighteen, she might be thirty.”

  “That’s cause she’s a Chinaman,” Reba said. “They look young when they’re a hundred years old.”

  “You can take the girl out of the projects,” Leonard said, “but you can’t take the projects out of the girl.”

  “You talking big, country man,” she said. “Listening to all that cracker music and shit. You ought to put some shine on your black ass.”

  Leonard gave her a look that could have made a bear call a taxi. “And you ought to shut up before I set you on fire, you little shit.”

  “Come on, Leonard,” Chance said. “She’s a kid. Talk nice.”

  “Naw,” Reba said, and she might have been the bear’s taxi driver. “Bring it, cowboy.”

  I saw Leonard fume and perhaps consider how long he would be in prison for killing a child. “Last time I rescue your ass,” Leonard said.

  “Yeah, well, you get killed, you ain’t rescuing no one’s ass,” she said, and I thought I detected a small catch in her voice.

  Leonard relaxed. “No way. Me and Hap, we’re invincible.”

  “No, we’re not,” I said.

  “Well, we’re tough,” Leonard said.

  “Ain’t nobody tough enough in the end,” Reba said.

  Chance got up and came over and put her arm around Reba. “They’re both fine.”

  “Hell, I don’t care,” Reba said. She didn’t look at either of us when she said it.

  “I know what,” Brett said. “How about I fix some lunch? You boys want coffee?”

  “That would be good,” I said.

  “Good,” she said. “I’ll order us a couple of pizzas. Hap, start the coffee.”

  “That’s not fixing lunch,” I said.

  “It’s my way of fixing lunch,” she said.

  19

  A couple days passed, and the weather stayed volatile. Every time it cleared up and looked as if it was going to stabilize, a black cloud would appear in the distance and the rain and the wind would come again and howl loud enough to scare the shit out of a lion.

  The Atlantic kept brewing up unseasonable tropical storms, and it was said a hurricane about the size of Rhode Island was going to make landfall in Houston. It might even make it to LaBorde.

  The news told us not to take it lightly, to prepare and expect storm damage. It warned that though it was rare for a hurricane to make its way this far inland, this on
e looked highly possible, and maybe with category 3 winds. The weather lady suggested we stock up on food, flashlight batteries, and candles.

  We had already lost one window on the house due to flying debris, and I expected it would be worse in a few days. I nailed some plywood over the missing window. When the weather settled down, I planned to replace it.

  Brett Sawyer Investigations was out of work right then. No one needed a cheating spouse followed, so we were mostly sitting around. Pookie was still away, so Leonard had been staying with us.

  It was a crowded house. Chance and Reba gave up the bedroom, where Chance had slept in the bed and Reba on an air mattress. Leonard took their place in there. Chance ended up on the couch, and Reba had the air mattress on the floor next to it. Buffy slept with Reba. Reba loved that dog and cuddled her like she was a big stuffed toy. It seemed as if Buffy was pretending to be one.

  Something about the storms, and the big one that might be coming, caused me to give my life a lot of consideration. The storms were out of season that year, and so was I. Leonard and I joked, but I was beginning to feel my age.

  I used to heal practically overnight, but now my bones ached from past encounters, and I found I enjoyed lying about more, staying near Brett. We filled in places that the other lacked, and no doubt, I got the better end of that deal.

  We had recently married after living together for years. There had been a couple of separations, a worry here and there about things the three of us had done in the name of justice, as if we had any right to deal out justice. But we had anyway. Leonard and Brett were fine with that. They slept well at night. They were pragmatic. Me, I was a wounded idealist with a liberal limp. I wanted justice, but I wanted hope, and I wanted to be the old me, the person I was before I had taken a life.

  I was not a pacifist, but I didn’t want to keep trying to solve problems with weapons and fists. The guilt of that had begun to outweigh the satisfaction.

  Maybe it was time me and Leonard pulled out a couple of rocking chairs. We could just peek through windows to see who was cheating on who and cash our checks, take it easy.