Shackles (15 page)

It was a few minutes past nine when I finished writing the note, the last thing I had to do before leaving.

I anchored it down on the kitchen table with a can of creamed corn, so it wouldn’t blow off and maybe get overlooked. Six lines written on a torn-off piece of paper sack with a marking pen I’d found, addressed to the A-frame’s owners, Tom and Elsie Carder, whose names and Stockton address I’d gotten from an old letter in the pocket of a woman’s Windbreaker. Six lines that apologized anonymously for breaking in, for the damage I’d done and the things I’d taken; that promised I would make restitution before the end of the summer. Six lines that meant what they said.

I wrote them because I had been wrong yesterday, when I’d said to myself that breaking the law no longer mattered to me, that principles and ethics were for men whose lives had not been turned upside down. The truth was, I hadn’t lost any of my respect for the law, nor any of the principles by which I had always lived. The ordeal I had been through hadn’t done that to me, and what I intended to do in the name of justice wouldn’t do it to me either. There was a fine line here, such a fine line: You could kill someone who had wronged you terribly, you could compromise your principles that much and still be able to live with yourself; but if you compromised them completely, if you threw
all
your beliefs and ideals out the window, then you also threw out your humanity and you were no better than the man who had wronged you or all the outlaws you had done battle with over the years.

This understanding came to me earlier today, when I gathered up the journal pages and my eye fell on one of those I’d written about my old man: …
vowing to myself that I would not be like my old man, I would not, I would not drink whiskey and I would not steal and cheat … I’m reasonably honest, I don’t willingly inflict pain on those I care about or on any decent human being. Whatever else I am, whatever my shortcomings, I am not my old man’s son.

And I’m not. The words gave me a jolt for that reason. I will soon take the law into my own hands, yes; I believe I have a right to do that under the circumstances. But at the same time I still do not believe in stealing and cheating and willingly inflicting pain on anyone except a mortal enemy, and I never will, and I must never do any of those things except under extreme duress and then only if I’m prepared to pay the price.

I am not my old man’s son.

I went down the areaway, out through the rear doors onto the snow-crusted platform porch. The sky was mostly clear today, mottled here and there with pale puffs and streaks of cloud, and the wind was little more than a murmur. Sunlight glittered off the snow surfaces, made a prism of an icicle hanging from one of the pitched eaves. The temperature had warmed considerably, but the air still had a wintry bite. I had bundled myself up like a child from head to foot: woolen cap pulled down over my ears, woolen muffler, the fur-lined gloves, turtleneck sweater and lumberman’s shirt and faded Levi’s, a padded bush jacket that came down to thigh level, three pairs of socks, and a pair of heavy, high-top hiking boots. My wallet and the journal pages were in pants pockets; the .22 Sentinel revolver was in the zippered right pocket of the bush jacket.

I still wasn’t feeling all that well, but I thought I could travel all right as long as I didn’t tumble into any more snowbanks and the weather stayed clear. I had spent too many days cooped up inside the cabin walls to want to endure another one here. I needed movement, I needed to get out of these mountains and back to the kind of environment I understood. I needed to begin the hunt.

Getting through the snowpack from the porch to the woods was slow, hard work. Once I was in among the trees, though, the drifts weren’t as deep and I could make better time. Even so, it took me twenty minutes to reach the road, angling away from the A-frame so I could come out of the trees where they made a thick border close to the road. That way my tracks would be less conspicuous.

A snowplow crew hadn’t been along here recently; there were a couple of inches of slushy, tire-rutted snow on the road surface. I managed to jump out into one of the near ruts and stayed in one or another as I set off downhill, slapping clinging particles of snow off my pants and jacket. Anyone who cared to look closely could see where I’d come from, but maybe nobody would care. In any case, if I encountered anybody I had a story worked out to explain what I was doing tramping around this wilderness on foot.

The wet snow in the ruts was slippery and I had to keep my head down and pick my way along. Just as well, because the sun hurt my eyes whenever its glare penetrated the tree branches and reflected off snow. The morning had a hushed, crackling quality, so that each little sound seemed magnified. But I had gone about a third of a mile, past two more snow-blocked access drives, before I heard the one sound I was listening for.

It came as a low whine at first, some distance behind me. I tensed, and my heart began to beat faster—but I stayed where I was. No point in trying to avoid contact now. I had to deal with people again sooner or later, and maybe I could wangle a ride to the nearest town.

The engine sound got progressively louder until I could hear the change in tempo as the driver geared down for each curve. By the time the vehicle came in sight, I had moved to the edge of the road and was standing there waiting for it. It was a black Ford Bronco with oversized snow tires, the two rear ones wearing chains—the same Bronco, probably, that I had seen parked near the occupied cabin two days ago. The driver slowed when he saw me and as soon as he did I started waving one arm over my head, signaling for him to stop. But I didn’t step out into the Bronco’s path, and a good thing, too: It rolled right on past me in low gear. Only then the driver must have changed his mind, because the brake lights flashed and the big squat vehicle skewed to a halt thirty yards away on my side of the road.

I moved toward it, hurrying a little, trying to make myself look purposeful and yet harmless. The side windows were smoke-tinted so that you couldn’t look in from outside; but the driver had to be looking out at me, all right, sizing me up. When I halted alongside his door I stood motionless for a few seconds, fighting the tension, letting him take a good look. I must have passed muster because the window finally began to wind down, and in a few seconds I was face-to-face with the man behind the wheel—the first human being I had seen in ninety-three days.

He was about forty, heavyset, bandit-mustached, wearing a cowboy hat and a fleece-lined sheepskin coat. The macho outdoors type. The only expression on his face and in his eyes was a wary curiosity. He wasn’t alone in the car; the other occupant stood on the backseat peering over the guy’s shoulder with six inches of spit-slick red tongue lolling out. Big German shepherd, the kind with hard yellow eyes and teeth like spikes—the kind you’d walk a block out of your way to avoid if you saw it unleashed on a street corner.

The dog built even more edginess in me. I can get along with most dogs but I’ve had run-ins with this variety before. My hands were down flat against my sides and I could feel the hard outline of the .22 against my right wrist; but that wasn’t the way to deal with this guy or his dog, or anybody else if I could help it, except one man. I lifted my arms away from my body, put my eyes on the guy in the driver’s seat and kept them there, hoping the tension didn’t show.

“Morning. Thanks for—” The words came out in a rusty croak, and I had to break off and clear my throat before I could go on. How long since I had last used my voice? “Thanks for stopping.”

He didn’t acknowledge that. He said, “Problem?”

“You can say that again.”

“I didn’t see your car along the road.”

“That’s because I haven’t got it anymore.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, it’s like this. My name’s Canino, Art Canino,” I lied. “My wife and I been staying at the Carders’ place … Tom and Elsie, you know them?”

“No.”

“Well, they weren’t using it this time of year so they let us come up for a few days. We been having trouble, the wife and me, marriage trouble … you know how it is. So I suggested we get away, off by ourselves, try to work things out. Stupidest goddamn idea I ever had.”

“That so?”

“All we did was fight. All we ever do these days is fight. Last night we had a hell of a row and when I went to the can she took the keys and drove off with the fugging car.”

“You mean she never came back?”

“That’s what I mean. Stranded me up here, no phone in the cabin, no transportation out. Can you believe a woman who’d do a thing like that?”

He thought about it and decided he could. I watched his face relax, a tight little smile form on his mouth. He’d also decided to be amused. I was good for his ego, I was; he could feel superior to a poor schmuck like me. Some people are like that, the macho types in particular: They need the misfortune of others to make them feel good about themselves.

“My wife ever did something like that,” this asshole said, “I’d break a few of her teeth for her.”

“Yeah. Well, I’m through with mine—this is the last straw. Soon as I get back to Stockton, I’m hiring a lawyer to file for divorce.”

“That where you’re from? Stockton?”

“Now it is. Moved there five months ago, from up north. Eureka. Hell, I don’t even know anybody well enough I can call to come pick me up. How am I going to get home?”

“Don’t look at me,” the guy said.

“No, no. But there must be a bus or something … what’s the nearest town I could catch a bus to Stockton?”

He shrugged, smiling his smug little smile. “I never been on a bus in my life.”

“Sonora? Maybe I could get one in Sonora.”

“Maybe.”

“That’s not too far from here, is it?”

“Far enough.”

“I don’t suppose you’re going anywhere near there … ?”

“Not me. Deer Run’s as far as I’m going.”

Deer Run. That was a wide place on a secondary mountain road ten miles or so north of Murphys; I’d passed through it once, a long time ago, and I remembered a handful of buildings—hardly enough to justify the place being called a hamlet, much less a town. It was where I’d estimated my location, and maybe thirty miles from Sonora.

I said, “I’d be glad to pay you if you’d take me as far as Sonora.”

“Yeah? How much?” But he wasn’t really interested; I could tell by the tone of his voice.

“Forty dollars?”

“Nah. I got things to do this morning.”

“Fifty.”

“Can’t do it, pal,” he said, and paused, and then said, “Could be Mary Alice’d know somebody who will.”

“Mary Alice?”

“She runs the store in Deer Run.”

“That where you’re going, her store?”

“Among other places.”

“Well, would you mind giving me a lift there? I’d appreciate it; I’m tired of walking.”

I put a pleading note in my voice, hating myself for doing it, and it made him laugh. He said, “Sure, why not? I won’t even charge you nothing.”

“Thanks. Thanks a lot.”

“Come on, get in.”

I went on the passenger side, opened the door. He must have said something to the dog; it was sitting all the way back on the rear seat, not drawn up but not relaxed either, watching me with those hard yellow eyes. I could feel the eyes on me as I slid inside and they made my skin crawl, ran the edginess right down into my hands so that I had to clasp them together in my lap to keep them from shaking.

“Dog make you nervous, pal?”

“Well … a little.”

“Makes a lot of people nervous,” the asshole said meaningfully, but with the amusement still in his voice. “That’s because he’s attack-trained. Never know what kind of trouble you’ll run into these days, even way up here.”

“No. No, you sure don’t.”

Neither of us had anything else to say on the drive into Deer Run. It wasn’t much of a drive—less than ten minutes and no more than a mile. The hamlet lay tucked up in a hollow surrounded by timbered hillocks, maybe a dozen buildings, and half a hundred junked cars and trucks poking up out of the snow. It had a primitive aspect, as if the past fifty years or so had passed it by. Only three of the buildings were business establishments: a general store and post office, a service station, and an out-of-business, boarded-up “antique” store. Those three buildings were located just beyond where the road we were on intersected with another county road. That one must have been the through road to Murphys in one direction, to Highway 49 and San Andreas in the other: It had been cleared by a snowplow crew that was working now at one end of the hollow—two big snowblowers and half a dozen yellow-clad men—and it ran like a snaky black vein through all the sunlight white.

There was a road sign at the intersection, and when the guy braked there I had a quick look at the wooden arrow pointing back up the way we’d come. It read: Indian Hill Road. Okay. Now I knew exactly where my former prison was situated.

We pulled over into a cleared area in front of the store. It was a weathered building made of clapboard and corrugated iron siding, with pitched roof lines to prevent snow from piling up on top. It didn’t have a name, or if it did there was no sign announcing it that I could see. We got out, all three of us, and the guy let the dog nuzzle around my legs as we tramped inside. He liked what it did to me; he laughed in my face, a barking sound like the German shepherd might have made. I thought;
Easy, easy, he’s not important, none of this is important,
to keep myself from doing something foolish, like knocking the laugh back down his throat.