The Hunt Club (10 page)

I looked to Tabitha, tried hard to get a smile out, and said, “Did your brother juice this baby up? Because neither me nor Unc has.”

She stared at me a second, then quick moved her hands on the seat, the dash, the floorboard, and came up with the pen and paper.

I held the note to the window, caught the words in the light from a passing freeway lamp:
He worked on it, we went places. That’s all I know
. The letters were shaky now, like they were under water.

“Let’s hope he did,” I said, and looked in the rearview, saw a single headlight back there, rolling up the on-ramp.

The pedal was flat on the floor now, and I glanced down again, saw we were up to seventy-nine, and still the needle moved up, the sound of the engine big and loud and ready to burst, the steering wheel trembling in my hands. We were on the way up the bridge over the Ashley now, to our left the marina and boat ramp, rows of lit-up boats anchored out there and going by too fast. Then I looked back to the freeway, gray concrete and tall lamps lining it, ahead of me the lit-up green highway sign:
HWY 61 1¼
. I looked in the rearview, the pickup gaining on us now. We were up to eighty-five, still on the rise up the bridge.

I edged to the middle lane so I could take the off-ramp. I didn’t know this area over here, West Ashley, like I did North Charleston; knew only that 61 North headed to Summerville, a good twenty or so miles away, the road a two-lane hung over with live oak. And if I went south, there was a street off 61 that went over to the back end of Citadel Mall, the big place with Sears and Dillards and Belk and the movieplex.

I glanced in the rearview. They were still gaining, and now we were doing eighty-nine, that wheel trembling even harder in my hands. But it felt, too, like we were above the ground, the tires trying hard to hold us down on the concrete, like we were just gliding along here, and I knew this feeling was a dangerous one and a good one at once: we were doing near ninety, gliding along, but if I turned the wheel we’d flip, lose it all.

We crested the bridge, the road making a smooth twist down and to the left, beneath us now that marsh. Tabitha’s fingers tapped hard on the dash, her mouth open, teeth clenched. Still she took in quick breaths I could hear even over the engine screaming.

We hit ninety-one on the downhill, then fell back to eighty-nine. Then the engine shuddered, a kind of quiver that made the wheel jump. Tabitha turned to me: she’d felt it, too.

I looked down at the speedometer. There, next to it and to the left, was the gas gauge.

Empty, the little white needle down past the E, not even touching it.

I looked at her. She did nothing, only stared at me.

The engine flinched again, and now we were doing seventy-eight, up ahead another green highway sign:
HWY 61 NORTH
with an arrow to the right.

I moved to the right lane, saw them coming up behind us, that single headlight growing in the thin strip of sight the rearview gave me. We were doing sixty-four now, the off-ramp just ahead, right there the yellow speed-limit sign,
35 MPH
, and the big curved arrow showing where to go.

And now they were behind us, right on our ass, like they’d been at that intersection, and they bumped us, the steering wheel wild in my hands, and I pulled hard on it to keep it straight. We were only fifty yards or so from the ramp now, doing fifty, and I tried for the exit, leaned the wheel to the right.

Then the headlight in the rearview disappeared, and here they were on the right shoulder, the big yellow hood pulling up beside us.

The truck slammed us to the left, the steering wheel flying of its own, and Tabitha’s window exploded into a shower of glass pieces all over us, cold air flying in after it. She jumped over to me, pushed herself into my shoulder, her hands to her face, that sound she kept coughing out the back of her throat lost to the roar of the truck pushing us to the left, and to the cold air shouting in on us, and now we were past the exit, in the middle lane again, and we had only the chance of the next one, 61 South, not two hundred yards ahead.

Here was that yellow hood still riding right up against us, edging up, both of us slowing down and slowing down, and now here was the cab, higher than ours, so that the first thing I saw as they pulled up even with us was the pistol, thick and shiny, in the driver’s hand, his arm just hanging down out his window like he had hold of a beer bottle, then the driver himself with his baseball cap on straight, still grinning, his mouth moving fast, chewing away. He wasn’t looking at me but at the road, his other hand at the top of the wheel, holding
on. The one with the cap on backward was leaned over and looking at us. He held that beer up, made that salute again, but he wasn’t smiling anymore, their faces all moving shadows and angled light for the freeway lamp passing above us.

The driver gave out a little laugh, then lifted the gun, held it right there inside the Luv’s cab, pointed at us.

I tried to think what Unc would do.

I looked down: forty, thirty-eight.

“Best just to stop altogether,” the driver shouted, his voice loud and low. “You need to talk to us. About your uncle.” He glanced over at us, lost the grin. Still he chewed.

There went the exit for 61 South, the off-ramp on the other side of the pickup. Gone. Next stop, the end of the freeway, where it hit Savannah Highway. Only a mile ahead, but what might as well have been twelve light-years away.

I thought of Yandle, his finger pointed at me, shooting it at me, and of a hanged woman, and of a dead man at Hungry Neck, and of Unc hidden away somewhere.

And I thought of the paperweight.

The driver held the gun at us, his hand still to the wheel, thirty-five now, thirty.

Maybe it wasn’t what Unc would do at all. Maybe it was a coward’s way out. But it was a way.

I shouldered Tabitha away so I could get at my pocket, pulled out the paperweight.

“Is this what you want?” I yelled at him, and held it up. “Is this what you want?” I paused. “I don’t even know where Unc is!”

Tabitha pushed herself into me again, hands to her face.

The driver looked at the paperweight. He quit chewing, his eyebrows up, then turned to the other guy.

I thought the gun went off then, that he’d fired at us without even looking, and I shouted for the sound, jumped, felt Tabitha do the same.

But it wasn’t a gunshot at all, only the sound of his truck hit from behind, and in that moment his arm, there inside my cab, jolted forward,
caught against the blown-out window frame, twisted back and upside down, and I heard a hard pop: his shoulder torn from the socket, just like that.

The gun flipped up, fell to the seat.

The scabby green Plymouth cruised past us fast, pushing the truck along from behind, behind the wheel somebody with his sleeves rolled up, a cowboy hat and a pair of heavy sunglasses on.

They were out in front of us now, the truck and Plymouth in my headlights and flying away. The Ford driver’s arm just hung there out his window, flapping and turning, and then the Plymouth cut sharp to the left, pulled up alongside the truck, and turned into it, just like the truck had done to us, slammed it hard to the right.

The truck held its own for a second, then slipped to the right, slipped again, and all I could think of was that dead arm, pinned between the truck and the Plymouth, and then the Plymouth finished the job, edged the truck over onto the shoulder, where it disappeared down the embankment.

The Plymouth stopped, maybe a hundred yards ahead of us, his brake lights flaring up, him there on the shoulder.

Then the Luv shuddered all over, and I knew we only had a few yards left before we’d be stopped dead, and I turned to the right, edged over to the shoulder.

Tabitha held my arm, held it hard, her fingernails biting into my skin through the jacket. Her eyes were on the Plymouth, just sitting there, us moving closer to it and closer, until, finally, the engine died, and we stopped, my right wheels just off the pavement.

I could see the Ford from here, down at the bottom of the embankment. That single headlight was still on, and the taillights. But it was on its back. That’s all I could tell for the dark: it’d rolled, and it still had lights on. Nothing else, no movement.

Then the Plymouth’s reverse lights came on, and he started backing up, fast. My headlights were on still, and I tried to read his plate, but he’d caked mud over it. All I could see was the driver with his arm up over the seat, head turned back and looking at us, big dark sunglasses.

Here came the sound from Tabitha again, and I looked at her, felt my own breath going fast now. My heart’d slowed for a few seconds inside all this, the Plymouth taking care of the truck and that gun and all, but here was that adrenaline again, my arms heavy and light at once for it, my face hot and wet. Who was this guy, and what did he want with us? And the fact I couldn’t even come close to answering any of it made that sound she gave out seem about the best thing anybody could do. Here we were, shit out of gas.

I turned to Tabitha. There, on the seat beside her, lay the gun. Thick and shiny.

He came straight at us. I jammed the paperweight in my jacket pocket, quick reached across Tabitha for the gun, put it inside my jacket. She hadn’t even let go my arm.

Then he swerved, passed me on my side, just driving along backward, his arm still up, his head still turned, and he was gone, behind us now.

I looked in the rearview. He pulled right in behind us, edged up to my tail, just like the truck had done, and I turned to Tabitha, shook her with my arm. She looked at me, blinked.

I said, “He pushes us off the embankment, we jump out and roll.” I pulled out the gun, patted it. It was a .45 Smith & Wesson, I only now saw. I’d never fired one. But I figured I was ready as I’d ever be. I said, “Get ready.”

She nodded, and then he hit us.

Only a tap, contact.

I looked in the rearview. He rolled down his window, then leaned his head out, hollered, “Put it in neutral.” He paused, put his bare arm out the window, made the helicopter sign with his finger and hand:
Let’s go
. “I’ll push you on in,” he hollered.

I looked at Tabitha. She hadn’t heard a thing, only stared straight ahead.

I found the trigger, knew enough not to let my finger hang around there but still let it settle there a second.

He started pushing. I was still in gear, felt the car give, but only a little.

What would Unc do?

He’d get his finger the hell off a trigger, was the first thing came to mind.

“You need gas,” the man hollered. “Checked the gauge myself once the little girl left for you.”

And, too, Unc would tell me don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

I looked in the rearview one more time. He made the helicopter sign again, nodded.

I let go the gun, shifted to neutral. I tried to make my hands stop shaking but gave it up, just let myself tremble, and then we were rolling down the Mark Clark, big and wide and empty save for a scab-roofed Plymouth and a ’73 Luv.

We made it to the Amoco on Savannah Highway, light from the canopy above the row of pumps too bright down on us. He gave me one last shove with the Plymouth, and I rolled to a stop beside the pump, him right behind me. He cut off his lights, and I did the same.

I could see the worker inside the booth, a black woman in a red smock, orange hair greased into a single big cowlick just above her forehead. She was reading a magazine, the booth only big enough for cigarettes and a register.

His car door slammed, and I put my hand to the gun, looked in my side-view mirror, saw him stretch. He was skinny, not too tall, and had on jeans and boots and a blue shirt, those sleeves still rolled up. The hat was a straw one, the sides folded up, the front end bent down. And those sunglasses.

He looked familiar.

He came toward us, and I found the trigger again, just touched it.

Then he was at my window. I didn’t look at him, only saw out the corner of my eye his belt buckle and belt, the blue shirt, his jeans. My window was still up, and he made the motion with his hand for me to roll it down.

I let go the wheel, hoped he wouldn’t see my hand shake as I rolled down the window.

“First thing is,” he said, his voice light and sunny, like we were talking fish and how many crappie we’d caught today. He leaned against the truck, his forearms against the roof just above the window.

I knew this man. I’d heard this voice before. I knew him.

“Yessir?” I said, my hand back to the wheel, the other still inside the jacket.

“First thing is, I figure that badass pistolero either ended up in your cab or onto the road somewheres.” He paused. “If you got it, keep it. You might could use it.”

He tapped the roof twice, let out a breath.

“Yessir,” I said, and glanced at the woman in the booth. She turned a page in the magazine.

“Second thing is,” he said, and I made my eyes go straight ahead, “calm that girl down. Sounds like a stuck pig.”

Tabitha’d been scratching out that sound all this while, though I hadn’t heard it since we’d started past that rolled Ford. I just hadn’t listened.

“Yessir,” I said, and finally let go the gun. He’d told me to keep it, he’d pushed us here, he’d taken out the Ford.

A gift horse.

I put my hand out in front of Tabitha, sort of pushed down on the air a few times. She looked at me, and I mouthed the words
Calm down
.

Her eyes moved from me to the man at the window. Then she looked at me a long moment, gave a short, sharp nod, and the sound stopped.

“Next on our agenda,” he said, “is the fact Leland’s sinking in seven kinds of shit, and he thinks he knows how to swim.” He paused. “Problem is, he don’t. Thinks he can figure it all out, come up smelling like a rose. But he can’t.”

He took his hands from the roof, pushed them deep into his pockets.

“You tell Leland,” he said, all that air and light in his voice gone, in its place a black gravel whisper. “You tell your uncle we don’t care
where he’s hid. It don’t matter. Those two fuckhead shits back there don’t matter, neither.” He paused. “You tell him the people who count don’t give a good flying fuck where he’s hid out. The only way through this all is for him to do what he’s been asked to do. You tell him things’ll be fixed. We’re on his side. All’s he got to do is what’s been asked.” He stopped. “You tell him he’s got forty-eight hours, and it’s over and done with.”