An American Outlaw (6 page)

A girl's room—line of soft toys across the top of the bed. 

I shook my head.
Left
, she told me, at the end. I backed out—feeling like I shouldn't have seen it. Closed the door. Found the bathroom opposite.

I stared at myself in the mirror above the sink. Sweat and dust in lines on my skin. 

I ran water from the faucet, threw some over my face. Its cold sting sharp against my scalp. I put my fingers in my hair, tried to feel around the swelling on my head. 

I had to get out, get to Michael. No way I'd make it out on foot, the way I was. I could take her truck. Make up lost ground. But where were we? 

I steadied myself. Pushed open the bathroom door.

I walked back slow, out to the porch. 

I wasn't about to hurt her. All I needed was to get the hell away. 

She was smoking on a cigarette, now. One hand resting on top of her dog.

“We on our own here?”

“Why?” Her chin juts a fraction.

“Kid's bike,” I says. “I saw a kid's bike out front.”

She took a hit on the cigarette. Shook her head. But something passed behind her eyes. I saw it. A flash of something.

“You can't stay here,” she says. 

Whatever she liked of me saving that horse, she was done, now. 

“I run you someplace?”

I took a pull on my cup of coffee. Didn't answer. Bought a second, tried to think. 

The world turned on a knife edge; I'd seen it enough times in the Corps. 

“I've got a car. Up in Marfa.”

She watched me from across the table. Turning the silver bracelets.

“Is it far?” I says. “From here?”

She nodded. “Around an hour.”

“I got a ride down. I was going to trek up. Tell the truth, I'm a little lost.” 

I could tell she wasn't buying it. But she wanted me gone. 

I threw her a look. “You take me out to the highway?”

She sat back a fraction. Took another hit off her smoke.

It was worth a shot. No idea where I was.

She flicked the top of the Zippo. “If you want...”

She could take me to the highway. Better that than me trying to take her truck. 

From the highway, I'd improvise; find a way. Get to Marfa. 

I'd think of something. At least I'd be moving. The time I lost laying in her barn, I'd have to gamble, with Michael hurt.

She ran a hand over her dog. He twitched, laying at her feet. 

She drained her cup. 

“You want to get your stuff from the barn?” She stood. Went on back in the house, the dog following behind her, black tail flicking. 

I listened through the open kitchen window as she ran some water in the sink, a radio playing low.

I called through the window. “Alright then. I'll just be a minute...”

Maybe she heard. I couldn't tell.

Above the sound of the radio.

CHAPTER 8

Alpine.

At the Alpine Police Department, Marshal Whicher stares at a computer screen—US Marine Corps files, the entries brief, regimented. He scans the text, notices key words struck out at regular intervals; names of places, individuals, dates. All removed. 

He thinks of the doctor, in the cold room at the morgue. The kid on the gurney. Steven Childress.

Lieutenant Rodgers enters the office. 

“Marshal, I've got something one of our civilian support staff just turned up...”

Whicher pauses over the keyboard.

“It's a misdemeanor report,” the lieutenant says. “A caution. Given to Childress. Earlier this year.”

The marshal pushes the swivel chair away from the desk. 

“A misdemeanor?”

The lieutenant reads from the print-out in his hand. “Arrested. Not charged. Making a public nuisance. Outside the bank.”

“
This
bank?”

“Yes, sir. And get this—Childress' place of residence at the time is given not as Alpine, but Lafayette, Louisiana.”

Whicher stares at the younger man.

“Right where that airport robbery took place. Gilman James' home town.”

“Yeah, yeah, I got that.”

Rodgers offers him the print-out. “This thing didn't come up first time we searched the record. It was too minor to show up.”

The marshal takes it. Black mood descending. 

Neither man speaks for a minute.

“Y'all know the people at the bank. The manager?”

“I know him.”  

“Reckon you could find out what happened?”

“I have to head out. I can call him from the road.”

“Where y'all headed?”

“We've got new search teams arriving in. There's extra road surveillance, I need to check in, get everybody briefed. Do you want to ride along?”

“No, but keep your radio on.”

“I'll do that.” The lieutenant glances at Whicher. “If you need to speak to Dr. Wendell, I left his number for the morgue. It's on the desk there.”

“Gilman James, I need to speak to...”

“There's no word from Lafayette police. They're on alert if he turns up.”

The marshal shakes his head.

Lieutenant Rodgers puts on his cap. “I'll call the manager of the bank from the car.” He steps from the room. Pulls the door closed.

Whicher reads the brief lines of the report on the Childress caution. Then turns to the computer screen, the USMC file, on Gilman James. 

Records show James left the service after ten years plus. Active tours; the Marine Expeditionary Force from 2003—multiple tours in the Al Anbar Province, Western Iraq, from 2004. Assaults on the cities of Fallujah, Ramadi, Al Qa-im. Counter insurgency. Liberation of enemy controlled strongholds. Whicher leans back from the desk.

No disciplinaries. Regular promotion—to the rank of Staff Sergeant. And then Whicher stops at a line on the screen. 

There's a nomination. Candidacy; for the Navy Cross.

He reads the line again. Sits in the air-conditioned office. Eyes momentarily blank.

The CO. Somewhere there must be a CO. 

Talk to him, get a heads-up. 

Whicher scans the record, finds the last commanding officer. Rifle platoon, a particular company. A name. He writes it on a lined notepad. Then types into the USMC search directory.

A Marine lieutenant. Recently promoted captain. Then invalided out of the service, severely wounded in combat. In Iraq. 

The record shows initial treatment at Ibn Sina, then critical care in Landstuhl, Germany. Followed by repatriation to National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, MD. 

Whicher writes fast in the notepad. Where's the guy now?

The entry closes with a list of different centers; private clinics, therapy units. An injured man—likely still a patient somewhere, there'd be a wall of silence.

The Office of the US Marshal's Service enforced the law. In the end. No matter what. Brick by brick, you had to take down each wall.

Whicher dials the fifth number written on his notepad. He rolls a pencil on the desk. Staring at Lieutenant Rodger's elk-skin pen holder. 

The phone rings three times. It picks up.  

“Brooke AMC.” A female voice.

Whicher pins the phone against his neck. 

“Is that Brooke Army Medical Center? San Antonio?”

“Yes, sir. How may I help?”

“Ma'am, my name is John Whicher—US Deputy Marshal; Western Division.” 

He reaches for a second sheet of paper, full of hand-written notes.

“I'm trying to trace the whereabouts of an injured serviceman. I've been making inquiries at several of the main treatment centers for returning US service personnel.”

“Well, we're certainly one of the main treatment centers, Marshal. But we're not at liberty to discuss individual cases...”

“I know that, ma'am.”

“Especially not on the telephone.”

“I understand,” says Whicher. “Ma'am, is there somebody I could speak with about this? It's in relation to a serious crime investigation.”

“Involving a wounded man?”

Whicher catches the tone in the woman's voice. 

“Indirectly.” He lifts the notepad off the desk. “If I ran a name at you, do you think you might at least be able to confirm if the person is at your facility? Receiving treatment?”

A pause on the line. “I'd have to ask my superior on that.”

“Well. I tell you what. How about I give you the name? And then, I'm on give you a number where you can reach me—at the police department, here in Alpine.”

Another pause. 

“Well. Alright, sir. I suppose I can ask...”

“Okay. You got a pen? Okay. It's a captain in the US Marine Corps...”

“Oh. Well, Marshal, they're mainly Army here.”

“You don't have any Marines?”

“We do. But that'd be Doctor Zemetti. He handles the inter-service cases. I can speak with him.”

“Ma'am, I'd appreciate that. I'd be obliged.”

“What's the name of this captain?”

“Heywood Black.”

“Alright, sir. I'll be sure and speak with Doctor Zemetti.”

“I appreciate your help, ma'am.” 

Whicher hangs up. And reaches for another sheet of paper.

CHAPTER 9

Black Mesa, Terlingua.

The door of the barn blew loose in the hot wind. The timber prop toppling in the dirt. I grabbed my back pack, swung it over my shoulder. Turned to climb the ridge, get back up to the house.

I stepped around the side of the barn. 

Tennille's standing, watching me. Stock still. The green hunter's jacket over her print dress. 

Staring straight down the barrel of her twelve-gauge.

She jerked the shotgun. 

“Put your hands in the air.”

“What the hell are you doing?” 

I took a step back, saw the look in her eye. Cold fury. 

I raised my hands above my shoulders.

“I'll tell you what,” she says, “Mister Gilman Francis James—out of Lafayette, Louisiana. You're wanted for armed robbery. It just came on my radio....”

I blew my cheeks out. Stared at her.

She swung the shotgun to one side. Fired into the air. The noise echoing out across the scorched ground.

 “I'm not afraid to use this...”

“I see that.”

“Start walking. Up to the house.”

She leveled the twelve-gauge. My mind raced to think of something. Anything. 

She circled wide and dropped behind me. 

I walked slow up the dirt slope, toward the adobe house.

“Get in that truck,” she said. 

I glanced at the 350 parked up. 

“Get inside. You’re driving. We're headed down the hill.”

I craned my neck, trying to see her. “Listen...”

“Just get in.”

I walked to the truck. Opened up the driver's door. Swung the pack off my shoulder. Turned to look at her.

“Throw your pack on the back seat.” Her eyes narrow.

I slung it inside, got behind the wheel.

 The keys were hanging in the ignition.

“Start it up,” she says.

I fired the engine.

“I'm going to ride up in back—but I'll blow you through the windshield you pull the slightest move.”

“Where are we going?”

“Alpine. Police department.”

I stuck the truck into gear. 

I steered towards a track leading out, down the hill. Fighting the feeling, rising up inside. I caught her eye in the rear-view. Anger in the set of her jaw. 

“Don't look at me. You son of a bitch.” 

She raised the shotgun above the seat back—to where I could see it. 

“I took you in. I should have left you to die in the desert.”

Alpine.

Whicher snatches up the ringing phone from the desk.

“Whicher.” 

“Marshal? It's Lieutenant Rodgers. I've got news...”

“Okay, lieutenant.”

“Everything alright back there?”

“Yeah. I'm waiting on another call...”

“Alright, I'll make it quick. I just got done speaking with the manager of the bank. About that caution—on Steven Childress?”

“Yeah, go ahead.”

“He told me they'd had to let him go. On account of he was only working there short-term. Some fixed term contract. But Childress took it bad. And then, not long after, he was arrested outside protesting.”

“About what?”

“Iraq. Wounded vets.”

Whicher frowns.

“Childress seemed to think the town should be doing more to support them. That the bank should.”

The marshal writes a note in the pad on his desk.

“You still there?” the lieutenant says.

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Well, look, I'm over liaising with the Brewster County sheriff's department, now. The sheriff's put together a pretty good plan to cover all routes in and out of the area. He was hoping to meet with you, go over the plan of containment. If you're not too tied up?”

“It can wait.”

“Also, there's an ATF agent, down from Houston. He was wanting to talk with you.”

“That a fact?”

“I suggested we all meet on the highway, south of town. Sheriff's got the road blocked, there. They're checking all vehicles. Thought you might want to see it.”

“Alright, good. Y'all got plenty of fire power down there?”

“Yes, sir, Marshal.”

“Keep it the hell ready...”

Butcherknife Hill.

I steered the black and red 350 down an incline, the highway just below us.

“We get to that highway,” she says, “make a left. Head north.”

Through the open window of the truck, the terrain was like a moonscape. No place to hide. I steered on, trying to play for time. 

Down on the highway, a big sedan was moving, headed towards us, a cloud of red dust trailing in its wake. 

One guy in it, driving. Black Stetson pushed down on his head.

I swung the truck out on the road. Drove silent, staring at the blur of pale scrub rushing by. 

“I'm not a bank robber. Not like you think...”

“I heard what I heard.”

I risked a look at her, in the rear-view. 

A line of sweat ran down the side of her face.