An American Outlaw (9 page)

“No ma'am. It's nothing like that.”

She gives the faintest nod.

“Y'all hear about it?"

“Excuse me?”

“The robbery?”

She hesitates. A second time.

“Yes,” she says. “I think so. Yes.”

Whicher stares in through the truck's open window. Why'd she hesitate? Not once.

But two times.

CHAPTER 11

11
^th
& Holland Avenue,  Alpine.

I found it. A white building. Flat roof, hand painted sign on the wall. It was two blocks up—not exactly where she'd said.

Her truck was nowhere. I scanned the street. 

There was no other store. It had to be the one.

I walked fast, back down to Holland. Ducked under a porch roof. 

The highway had been deserted when I'd crossed it; I'd had to stop myself from running. All it took was one thing out of place.

But I could watch for her on the highway, if I was careful. 

I got myself in behind a boarded-up feed store; stole a look east, up the road. A farm truck blew by. I ducked in. 

When I looked back again, I could see there was a truck parked—a hundred yards further up. 

It looked like her. 

Alongside the truck, there's a man in uniform. A state trooper. Leaning in the window.

I checked the ground behind the feed store. One-floor houses, container yards, empty concrete lots. If I took off, it was wide open; no place to hide. 

I glanced back—the trooper was reaching for something, now; inside his shirt pocket. 

I double-checked for a partner. Twenty yards further back, behind Tennille's truck, his cruiser's parked at the side of the road. No-one in it, that I can see.

He's on his own, his back's towards me—she hasn't seen me. 

But now he's stepping away from the truck. The door's opening; she's stepping out.

He's handing her something. She takes it, flicks her hair to one side. 

Then she turns and walks away.

I was staring, now.

The trooper hitched his belt and pants. He starts walking towards the cruiser.

I ran behind the feed store; up twelfth street, parallel with eleventh. 

I saw her reach the grocery store. Glance up and down the street. Then head inside.

There was barely a car, no people anywhere. 

If she was setting me up, where was everybody? 

I took a breath. Stepped out. Across eleventh.

I reached the store. 

I pushed open the door, stepped inside. 

Tennille's at the far end of an aisle, filling up a plastic basket—there's nobody else inside there, that I can see. The counter's empty.

“Hey,” I called.

She turns, sees me. “They're everywhere,” she says. “Wait for me outside.”

I just stared at her.

“Go,” she breathes.

I turned around. Walked out. Scanned the street. 

At the end, on main, the state trooper's walking by the intersection with the highway. 

I backed around the side of the grocery store. Waited by the garbage cans, stinking in the mid-day heat.

From the corner of the store, I could just about watch the highway. A car was turning in off it, rolling up the street. It drove up, and then by me. German Shepherd watching me from the passenger seat. 

I heard the door. Tennille coming out. 

She was carrying a paper grocery bag.

I called out; “Over here...”

She turned her head a fraction. “Stay there,” she says. “We're going out the back way.”

She walks toward the intersection. 

She's about to turn and head towards her truck, when the trooper steps back in view—from the opposite sidewalk. She checks her step. Nods toward him. Lifts her hand to the side of her face. Little finger and her thumb extended. Like a telephone sign.

Then she turns the corner. She's out of sight. The trooper still waiting. 

I'm rooted; no way I can move.

A minute passes. 

I'm staring down the street, at the highway. The front end of her truck swings past the intersection. She turns in slow, around the corner. 

She drives up the street, pulls the truck over, steps out. 

“You're driving,” she says. 

She wrenches open the rear door of the crew cab. Jumps in back.

I stepped out from behind the grocery store. Climbed in, behind the wheel. 

She's holding out a piece of paper in her hand. 

I glanced at it; saw my face staring back at me. 

I took the square of paper; studied the photograph—it was an out of date driver’s license, taken back when I was still in the service. Hair cropped close in to the scalp. Look on my face like I'm in a bad mood. What people tell me.

When I looked up she was holding the shotgun on me. Beneath the line of the window.

“Call your friend,” she says.

“Are we doing this?”

“Get him out of Marfa. We can't go there. There's too many cops.”

“Then how's he going to make it out?”

“You see his picture anywhere on that piece of paper?

“So?” 

“They're not looking for him.”

“You don't know that.”

“Use a payphone. There's a post office. Three blocks from here.”

I checked the street. Pulled out from the kerbside. Drove away from the highway, past a bunch of houses on fenced lots.

“They stop you?” I says, “they talk to you?”

“They had a roadblock on the entry into town. I guess you got that right.”

I nodded. “What you tell 'em?”

“That I was headed into Alpine.”

“They buy it?” 

I scanned the dirt blown streets to either side. Brick barns at the end of a grit track.

“Some marshal was there,” she said. “He gave me that picture. Turn the next left—by the church.”

I turned past the white-sided building. 

“How about that trooper? How come he stopped you? I saw. He gave you something.”

“His phone number.”

“You serious?”

“Yeah.”

“He looking for a soul-mate?”

“I doubt that.”

I drove down the street. Saw the post office. Out front, a payphone on the wall.

“Tell your friend,” she says, “ten miles out of Marfa, you pass a ranch entrance. FD Ranch. You see a track. It runs south off the road.”

“Okay.”

“Tell him to follow it up in the hills. To Paisano Pass.”

I pulled the truck over. Jumped out, walked fast. 

I grabbed a hold of the payphone, stuck in fifty cents. I dialed the number. Michael's cell. It's ringing. 

Overhead, the sky's darkening. Weather rolling in from the south. 

The phone picks up. “Michael, it's Gil.”

A moment's silence. “Where the hell are you?” His voice a rasp.

“In Alpine.”

I heard the catch in his breath.

“Just, listen,” I says. “There's no time. Are you still in Marfa?”

“Yeah.” His voice weak.

“Can you drive?”

I listened to the sound of his breathing.

“I need you to drive ten miles. East. Toward here.”

He coughs.

“Can you?”

“Shit...”

“Take the highway. But watch for cops.”

“Gil,” he breathes. The line hums.

“Pass a ranch. FD Ranch. Make a right. Up a track—into the hills. Paisano Pass...”

There's nothing. Just the hum on the line.

“I'll be waiting,” I says.

“This is going to hell...”

“Can you get there?”

He's already clicked off the call.

I stood by the roadside, in the wind. Tennille watching me from the truck cab. 

Dark eyed. 

Shotgun below the window.

I kept my hands light on the steering wheel. Held the truck loose on the bone hard ground. 

For thirty minutes Tennille had led us down tracks, out the back way from Alpine. We crossed US 90 five miles out of town. 

We were headed towards a flat pass, bouncing over the caliche between hills—blunt mountain rising in the west. 

I glanced at her, in the rear-view. 

“You really plan keeping a shotgun on me the whole way?”

“My rules.”

“How much further?”

“A mile and a half.”

I slowed the truck as the ground worsened. Brush hissing beneath the chassis. 

We were climbing two, maybe three hundred feet. Into a high valley, hidden from the road. We passed a board sign; for a Baptist Camp. I read the words painted on it.

I will lift up mine eyes to the hills

From whence comes my help

Psalms 12 1:1

I looked at her in the mirror. Waited, till her eyes met mine. Saw the flush at her face, in her dark skin. 

“You still got an alibi.”

“I'm not planning needing one...”

I steered on, to where the pass flattened out—watching the sky, bruised-up sky. 

Across the scrub grass, a blue Toyota pick-up wound its way in the lee of the square-topped mountain. Michael's truck. He must've been waiting. Seen us, driving up. 

I stopped. Killed the engine. Put my arm on the handle of the door.

“Stay the hell where you are. Don't move. I'll tell you when.”

“I need to show him who it is. He don't know this truck...”

“I don't care. Wait till he's closer.”

The pick-up came on slow. Sun glaring in a streak off the windshield. I couldn't make him out.

Tennille says, “Don't screw this up now.”

I turned in my seat. Stared at her. “I told you—I'll give you the money.”

She sat back. Flicked the barrel of the twelve gauge up an inch.

I turned around again, to look at Michael. 

The swelling on the side of my skull ached. I put a hand in my hair. 

“If I never would've knocked my God damned head...” 

I took my hand away. At least there was no blood.

“I thought you were sent,” she says.

“What?”

“It doesn't matter...”

“What do you mean,
sent
?”

She was silent a moment. Then she said, “You didn't trip, last night.”

I watched Michael. Still approaching.

“The only thing you knocked your head against—was the butt end of this.”

I twisted in my seat to look at her.

“I thought Leon sent you. The bastard I married...”

“
You
hit me?”

She nodded. “Just shut up.”

“You knocked me out?”

I turned back to looking at Michael. 

“What did you think I was going to do?”

She didn't answer.

Michael's pick-up was thirty yards out. He'd slowed to a crawl.

“He do that a lot?” I says. “Your old man? Send people out? Up to your place?”

“It's not the first time.”

The pick-up was twenty yards out now. And closing.

From the back seat of the crew cab, Tennille said, “He wants our daughter.”

I twisted again, to look at her.

“You pull any shit...”

“I'm not pulling anything. Take it easy.”

“Turn around. Keep your eyes on your friend out there.”

Michael had stopped. Ten yards from us. He hadn't got out.

“You got a husband that sends people. To get your daughter.”

“Or me,” she says.

 I met her eyes in the mirror. Saw her jaw tighten. 

“You saw that fire? The back of my house. You remember? You saw it was burned?”

I thought of the damaged roof. Black render falling off the wall.

“He did that,” she said.

“You got a husband set your house on fire?”

“You can get out, now. But do it slow.”

I put a hand on the lever. Pushed open the driver's door. 

“What's he want with you?”

“He wants me dead.”

I stood in the glare of desert. 

Tennille got out. 

The window starts to roll on Michael's truck.

“Hey,” I called over.

His face is in the open window of the pick-up truck. He's staring at Tennille—behind my shoulder. “Who the hell is that?”

I started to walk towards him. Tennille in step behind me. 

I felt the muzzle of the shotgun in my back.

Michael was pale. His blond hair matted. A film of sweat on his face. His blue eyes winced as he tried to straighten himself at the wheel. “Who's the girl?” he said. He wasn't smiling.

Tennille stepped from behind my shoulder. She raised the shotgun. “I'm the reason your friend here made it this far.”

Michael stared at her. Then at me. 

“They know,” I says. “They're looking for the truck; my truck.”

She says, “We made a deal. Fifty thousand dollars.”

He pushes the matted blond hair off his forehead. “The fuck is she talking about?”

“Just give her the money. Let her have it.”

Michael raised his chin.

“We'll make it all back,” I says. “This ain't finished.”

He shook his head, slowly.

Tennille stepped forward. She raised the shotgun. “I'll shoot the pair of you, right here.”

“Honey,” says Michael. “It don't matter if you do.”

I says, “What's that mean?”

“The money,” he says. “From Lafayette? It was in Steven's car.”

Tennille stepped in closer, “What is this bullshit?”

I says, “Steven had all the
money
?”

“It's gone, man...” 

Michael slumped back in the driver's seat. Head hanging.

Tennille fired a round in the air. It boomed off the mountain. 

She stepped back. Pumped another shell. “I'm giving you thirty seconds.”

“Go ahead,” says Michael.

“
Wait
,” I says.

“Thirty seconds...” she spat. “You son of a bitch.” Eyes narrow, like a wild-cat.

The door of Michael's pick-up opens.

Tennille whips the barrel from me—to him.

He puts one leg, one boot out of the truck.

She's got the shotgun pressed tight into her shoulder.

As Michael collapses. Face down. Onto the dirt.

CHAPTER 12

ANBAR PROVINCE, WESTERN IRAQ.

Five years earlier
.