First Blood (1990) (9 page)

'Thanks,' Rambo told the old man whose light remained shining on his face. Then the light went out. 'Thanks for that too,' Rambo said, the image of the light remaining on his eyes a few seconds, slowly fading.

'Just helping the batteries.'

Rambo heard him start to come forward through the underbrush. 'Better not come closer,' he said to the old man. 'We don't want to mix your scent with mine.'

'I wasn't about to. There's a log here I wanted to sit on is all.'

The old man lit a match and touched it to the bowl of a pipe. The match did not stay lit very long, but as the old man puffed on his pipe and the flame from the match got high and low, Rambo saw a tousled head of hair and a gristled face and the top half of a red-checkered shirt with suspenders over the shoulders.

'Do you have any of your stuff with you?' Rambo asked. 'Maybe.'

'It's cold like this. I wouldn't mind a swallow.'

The old man waited, then switched on his flashlight and heaved over a jug so that Rambo could see in the light to catch it. The jug weighed like a bowling ball, and in his surprise Rambo almost dropped it. The old man chuckled. Rambo pried out the cork, wet and squeaking, and in spite of the jug's weight he drank with one hand the way he knew the old man would respect, shoving a forefinger through the hook at the top, balancing the jug on the crook of his elbow. It tasted like two hundred proof, golden-strong and burning his tongue and throat, flooding hot every inch down to his stomach. He almost choked. When he lowered the jug, his eyes were watering.

'A little strong?' the old man asked.

'A little,' Rambo said, having trouble getting his voice to work. 'What is it?'

'Corn mash. But it's a little strong though, ain't it?'

'Yeah, I'd say it's a little strong,' Rambo repeated, his voice giving him more trouble.

The old man laughed. 'Yeah, it's a little strong all right.'

Rambo lifted the jug and drank again, gagging on the hot thick liquor, and the old man laughed one more quick burst. 3

The first songs of the morning birds wakened Teasle in the dark, and he lay there on the ground by the fire, huddled in the blanket he had brought from the cruiser, peering up at the late stars beyond the treetops. It had been years since he slept out in the woods. Over twenty years he realized, counting back to 1950. Not the end of 1950: sleeping in frozen foxholes in Korea hardly qualified. Hell no, the last time he had really camped out was that spring when he got his draft notice and decided to enlist in the Marines, and he and Orval hiked into the hills for the first weekend it was warm enough. Now he was stiff from sleeping on the rough ground, his clothes were damp from where the dew had soaked through the blanket,

and even near the fire, he was bone-cold. But he had not felt this alive in years, excited to be in action again, eager to chase after the kid. There was no point though in rousing everybody until Shingleton came back with the supplies and the rest of the men, and for now, the only one awake, he loved being alone this way, so different from the nights he had been spending alone since Anna had left. He wrapped himself tighter in the blanket.

Then the smell reached him, and he looked, and Orval was sitting at the end of the fire, dragging on a thin self-rolled cigarette, the smoke drifting toward Teasle in the cool early breeze.

'I didn't know you were awake,' Teasle whispered, not to disturb the others. 'How long?' 'Before you.'

'But I've been awake over an hour.'

'I know it. I don't sleep much anymore. Not because I can't. I just begrudge the time spent.'

Clutching his blanket, Teasle shifted close to Orval and lit a cigarette off the glow of a stick from the fire. The flames were flicking low, and when Teasle churned the stick back into them, they rose warm, crackling. He had been right when he told Orval this would be like old times, although he had not believed it then, needing Orval to come along and disliking himself for using that kind of emotional argument on the man. But the feel

of gathering firewood, tossing away stones and twigs to make the ground less rough, spreading his blanket, he had forgotten how solid and good that all was.

'So she left,' Orval said.

Teasle did not want to talk about it. She was the one who had left, not the other way around, and that made it look as though he was in the wrong. Maybe he was. But she was too. Still he could not bring himself to put blame on her just so Orval might not think poorly of him. He tried to explain it neutrally. 'She might come back. She's thinking about that. I haven't let on much, but for a while there, we were arguing quite a bit.'

'You're not an easy man to get along with.' 'Well, Christ, neither are you.'

'But I've lived with the same woman forty years, and as far as I can guess, Bea hasn't thought much about leaving. I know people must be asking you this a lot now, but considering what you and I are, I believe I have a right. What were the arguments about?'

He almost did not answer. Talking about very personal things always embarrassed him, especially this which he had not yet reasoned out - who was right, whether he was justified. 'Kids,' he said, and then since he had begun, he went on. 'I asked her for at least one. I don't care, boy or girl. It's just that I'd like someone to be to me like I was to you. I - I don't know how to explain it. I even feel stupid talking about it.'

'Don't you tell me that's stupid, buddy. Not when I tried so long to have a kid of my own.'

Teasle looked at him.

'Oh, you're like my own,' Orval said. 'Like my own. But I can't help wondering what sort of kid Bea and I would have made. If we had been able.'

It hurt - as if all these years he had been no more to Orval than the once needy child of a dead best friend. He could not accept that; it was more self-doubt from Anna leaving, and now that he was talking about her, he had to get it in the open, finished.

'Last Christmas,' he said, 'before we came to dinner at your place, we went over to Shingleton's for a drink, and watching his two kids, the look on their faces with their presents, I thought, maybe it would be good to have one. It certainly surprised me that at my age I wanted one, and it sure as hell surprised her. We talked about it, and she kept saying no, and after a while I suppose I made too big a thing of it. What happened, it's like she weighed me against the trouble she thought a baby would be. And left. The crazy thing is, as much as I can't sleep for wishing her to come back, in a way I'm glad she went, I'm on my own again, no more arguments, free to do what I want when I want, come home late without calling to explain I'm sorry to miss dinner, go out if I feel like it, screw around. Sometimes I even think the worst part about her leaving is how much the divorce will cost me. And at the same time I can't tell you how much I need her back with me.'

His breath came out in frost. The birds were gathered loudly. He watched Orval drag on the last of his cigarette close to his fingers, their joints gnarled and yellow from nicotine.

'And what about who we're after?' Orval said. 'Are you taking it all out on him?' 'No.'

'You sure?'

'You know I am. I don't act tougher than I have to. You know as well as I do that a town stays safe because of the little things kept in control. You can't do anything to prevent something big like a holdup or a murder. If some-body wants to do them bad enough, he will. But it's the little things that make a town what it is, that you can watch to make it safe. If I had just grinned and took what the kid was handing me, fairly soon I might have got used to the idea and let other kids hand it to me, and in a little while I would have been letting other things go by. It's me I was concerned about as much as the kid. I can't allow myself to loosen up. I can't keep order one time and not another.'

'You're still awfully eager to chase after him, even though your part of the job is ended. This is state police business now.'

'But it's my man he killed and it's my responsibility to bring him in. I want all my force to know I'll stop at nothing to get at anybody who hurts them.'

Orval looked at the pinched butt of the cigarette he was holding and nodded, flicking it into the fire.

The shadows were lifting, trees and bushes distinct. It was the false dawn, and before long the light would appear to dim again, and then the sun would show and everything would be clear. They could have been up and starting now, Teasle thought. Where was Shingleton with the men and supplies? He should have been back a half hour ago. Maybe something had gone wrong in town. Maybe the state police were stopping him from coming in. Teasle churned a stick in the low fire, raising flames. Where _was he?

Then he heard the first bark from the dog far off in the woods, and it stirred the dogs that were leashed to the tree nearest Orval. There were five of them here, and they had been awake, stomachs flat out on the ground, eyes intent on Orval. Now they were up, excited, barking in answer. 'Shush,' Orval said, and they looked at him and went quiet. Their withers were trembling.

Ward, Lester and the young deputy fidgeted in their sleep. They were down close to the other side of the fire, hugging their blankets. 'Uh,' Ward said.

'In a minute,' Lester said asleep.

The dog barked far off again, though sounding a little closer, and the dogs by Orval cocked their ears, barking excitedly in return. 'Shush,' Orval said stronger. 'Get down.'

Instead they jerked their heads toward another bark far off, their nostrils quivering.

'Get down,' Orval demanded, and slowly one by one they obeyed.

Ward squirmed on his side in the blanket, knees up near his chest. 'What's wrong? What's happening?'

'Just time to get up,' Teasle said.

'What?' Lester said and squirmed. 'God, it's cold.'

'Time to get up.'

'In a minute.'

'That's about how long they'll take to get here.'

People were crashing through the underbrush out there, breaking closer. Teasle lit another cigarette, his mouth and throat dry, and felt the energy building in him. It might be the state police, he all of a sudden realized, and stood hurriedly, drawing on his cigarette, straining to see into the forest in the direction of the cracking underbrush.

'God, it's cold.' Lester said. 'I hope Shingleton's bringing hot food.'

Teasle hoped it was just Shingleton and the deputies out there and not the state police. Abruptly five men were in sight, rushing between the trees

and through the bushes in the pale cold light, but Teasle could not make out what color their uniforms were. They were talking to each other, one

man tripped and swore, but Teasle could not identify the voices. If they were state police, he was trying to figure some way of keeping in charge.

Then they were close, hurrying out of the trees up this brief rise, and Teasle saw Shingleton stumbling after the dog that was straining on its leash, and he saw it was his own men behind, never so glad to see them before. They were carrying bulged-out burlap sacks, and rifles, and rope, and Shingleton had a field radio slung over his shoulder, the dog lurching him into camp.

'Hot food,' Lester was up asking him. 'Did you bring hot food?'

Shingleton apparently did not hear. He was out of breath, handing the dog over to Orval. Lester turned in a rush to the deputies. 'Did you bring hot food?'

'Ham and egg sandwiches,' a deputy said, chest heaving. 'Thermos of coffee.'

Lester reached for the sack the deputy carried.

'Not in there,' the deputy told him. 'Mitch. Behind me.'

Mitch was grinning, opening his sack, handing out wax-paper-wrapped sandwiches, and everybody grabbed, eating.

'You covered one hell of a distance last night in the dark,' Shingleton told Teasle, catching his breath, leaning against a tree. 'I figured to find you in less than half an hour, and here it took me twice that.'

'We couldn't move as fast as them last night, remember,' Mitch said. 'We had more to carry.'

'They covered one hell of a distance just the same.'

Teasle could not decide whether Shingleton was making excuses for being late, or whether he was really admiring.

Teasle bit into a sandwich, greasy and barely warm, but Christ, it was good. He took a paper cup that Mitch had poured full of steaming coffee; he blew on it and sipped, burning his upper lip and the roof of his mouth and his tongue, feeling the cold mulch of the egg and ham hot in his mouth. 'What's going on back there?'

Shingleton laughed. 'The state police had a fit over what you pulled.' He stopped to chew into a sandwich. 'Like you said, I waited in that field last night and they showed up ten minutes after you climbed into the woods. They were sweet Jesus mad over you taking advantage of the little daylight you had left so you could chase after the kid and stay in the game. It surprised me they figured it out so fast what you were up to.'

'But what's happened back there?'

Shingleton grinned proudly and bit another mouthful off the sandwich. 'I spent half the night at the station with them, and finally they agreed to play along with you. They're going to block the roads down out of the hills and stay out of here. It took some amount of convincing to get them not to come in, I'll tell you.'

'Thanks.' He knew Shingleton was waiting for that.

Shingleton nodded, chewing. 'What finally clinched things was I said you knew the kid better than they did and you'd know best what he might do.'