Beautiful Dreamer (19 page)

At that, the door swung open and he could hear someone winding the window up. Then the door slammed closed again and he could feel the pressure on his ears. They sure built them well, these Fords, he thought, in spite of himself.

*   *   *

The light reached the man and the boy before it did those at the foot of the mountain. As the previous evening had ended in celestial flame, flickering across the heavens, so the new day began with the same. Shepherd's warning.

They stood, side by side for a second, looking out across the surrounding countryside, seeing further than either had before, offered a vision that neither had been offered before they had come to this high place, driven there by events they could barely understand. Their lives had been separate. They shared nothing, not even a language, one having his tongue stilled, until God or some other force had taken them separately and shaken them together. They were on either side of a divide that had been opened up before either was born, and since history has not one face but many, it would be a surprise if they saw the world alike. Yet they had been brought to the same place and were in the same danger, depending on each other, not understanding but depending, and so together, as had no choice not to be unless one were to go down and the other up when going down made no more sense than climbing toward the sky.

It was almost silent here and the man realized suddenly what it had been that disturbed his fitful sleep. For there were no crickets here and no frogs, or if there were, no symphony of such. It was the quiet that had disturbed him and left his cool skin flinching in the night. A bird cried out suddenly, as if to contradict his thought, and he saw below him a grey shape begin to turn around in a circle, not rising yet, the land having given up its heat to the night, but ready, like them, to go higher than they had been before.

‘Let's go,' he said, and they moved off toward the mist still hanging above them, a grey shroud closing off their view of what lay ahead. Earlier, it had taken colour from the sunrise so that it seemed to glow, like a line of fire. But now it was no more than a cloud, come down to cut off the earth from the sky.

It was more difficult climbing now. There was still grass, there were still bushes, but the rock cut through and it was wet from the streams that splashed and skittered down. They headed for the mist as if it were the concealment they sought, though both knew it would disappear with the sun. But they seemed so far removed, now, from what they fled that neither moved with urgency. After an hour, they stopped, the sun warm on their backs. The mist had indeed begun to clear above them as the sun warmed the rocks, but it was still there below, where they had passed through it, cold suddenly, wet, so that they seemed severed from the ground, floating free, except that there were other mountain tops behind and hills that breasted the mist, still glowing red, though now the sun was fully risen the sky had turned from grey to blue.

‘Five, maybe six o'clock,' said the man aloud, though he said it to no one but himself. He was calculating when the train would have been searched but had no means of telling. The further off, the less they could know where they had dropped off. But how long could they survive up here? He had never asked himself this, simply heading on up because up seemed the best way to go. On the other hand, there was water, and after a day or two, well, who knew? They could maybe come down and make their way further north, jump another train perhaps. Except it would be better to keep away, not tread the same ground twice. Then there was the body. How had it come to be there and why was it as it was? Waiting there, as it seemed, for them to climb aboard, a curse waiting for them to be driven into its arms. Well, he believed in curses, as should he not who had seen more than one work itself out in his life? Wife, baby, dirt poor life. Who would have thought there was anything more, who would have thought he had only to enter a store and say that she got it wrong, the woman got it wrong when she called him what she did, to bring everything down on that man and then on him who only looked on? And not only him and the black man. Two more dead already and now the two of them waiting to see whether they would go free or not, the boy at the beginning of it all, already a killer because he had no choice but to be, and him who would never be free because of what had happened, because of what he had lost already that would never be returned.

A bird rose up beside them, hovering on the wind, catching the beginnings of the heat, staring at them as it passed, dark eyes, ruffled wings. He sat down, tired already and felt a pain shoot through his shoulder. He grit his teeth, so as not to cry out. It had come from nowhere, though he had been waiting for it. He unbuttoned the shirt with his good hand, thumb and finger inside, finger out, flicking the buttons open. He peeled back the shirt and looked down. It was inflamed and red with a blackness at the centre. There was a line etched around the red, marking where the poison had reached. The boy came across and knelt down, looking at it, as if there were anything he could do. The bullet had gone right through, so there was nothing to cut out. It was the dirt, no doubt, or maybe his fingers, from touching it. He pulled the shirt closed and smiled.

‘It'll heal. The body cleans itself. There's things in there that fights all kinds of badness. It'll heal.'

The boy looked up at the man, hearing something that went against the words, but the man just smiled and buttoned up his shirt, looking where the land stood out clear now and you could see the sparkle of the distant lakes turned from blood to gold to shimmering silver.

‘Rest a while,' he said. ‘No cause to push on fast.' Indeed, he had begun to wonder whether they need go any higher at all. The higher they climbed, the further they would have to come down, and he was beginning to think of when they would come down, especially now he had seen his shoulder in the light and knew that there was another clock ticking that had nothing to do with those who might be chasing him. Indeed, he no longer worried over much about them, not being able to see how they would find the two of them, for how would they ever find out where they stepped off the train? No, it was his shoulder he was thinking of now, and then the food they would need before long. He was still thinking of the future, then, still believing you can walk away and not look back when everything he had learned should have told him otherwise.

*   *   *

It was because it was Sunday. Mrs Brandt always went to her daughter's on Sunday so they could go to the Reformed Baptist Church together. And since there was only the one car, she took her husband with her in the morning and dropped him off at the depot on the way. So it was that the agent arrived thirty minutes early and saw the Ford parked by the railroad line and a battered truck just back under the trees. It didn't make any sense to him and still less when he looked inside the car and saw a police officer with tape over his eyes and mouth and his hands tied to the steering wheel with a length of oily rope.

The sheriff rang two different towns before he got an answer at the third. Around here, it seemed, police worked nine to five, six days a week. On the Lord's Day, crime was expected to take a rest. He left it to them to organize men to join the search and then set about thinking where the missing couple might have gone. As to the boys, they could be anywhere. He doubted the Sabbath influenced them over much, and wherever they were, they had it in mind to shoot someone. Whether it was likely they would find what they were looking for was something else. The compass has four points and the fleeing pair could have taken any of them.

He figured the one way they would not have gone was back where they had come from, and even the boys would have been capable of working that one out for themselves. That left three directions. If they were going on in the direction of the train, you would think they would have stayed on board, except that there was the question of the dead man, which was maybe one reason they had jumped ship in the first place. But if they were scared, they would hardly want to walk in the direction of people who might be coming back to find them. That left two ways they might have gone. One was back the direction he'd come from the turn-off, cutting out toward the lakes. The other was up the hills or mountains, the hills being high enough to call them either.

The mountain didn't really seem likely. It was a good way to get yourself trapped. On the other hand, back behind him the land fell away and was open in parts so that they could be spotted more easily. If there'd been two of him, he would have split up, but there weren't and he didn't fancy waiting half an hour, or more likely longer, since the cop he'd spoken to had sounded half-asleep and not all that interested. He looked up at the mountain and back along the track. Then he remembered the jar he'd picked up and tracked along the line to where he thought he'd found it. At first, he could see nothing, but then he noticed where a stream dribbled down, brown-stained, from the hillside. Running his eyes back up it, he saw a footprint, or what might have been a footprint. More a smear, really. But a foot had made it. Well, maybe others came this way. It was a depot, after all. Then again, the boys would have gone one way or another and there were several of them judging by what he had heard. But since he had to go one way or the other himself, he decided to bet on the mountain. That was the thought he had had before and thinking it again made it seem more likely.

He left a note for the others when they arrived, telling where he'd gone and suggesting they try both directions. Then he cursed himself for not ordering up a dog which would have settled it for sure. It had been light an hour now. They had jumped the train maybe twelve hours before. How far can a young boy and a wounded man climb in that time? And where the hell did they think they were going? Which was maybe why they hadn't gone that way at all. He nearly turned around, looking up at where the mist stopped him seeing more than a few hundred feet. But what the hell? Right or wrong, the odds were the same. He walked across to the Ford and locked it, then got a pair of boots out of the trunk, boots and a pair of socks, and then locked the trunk as well. He checked his rifle and the spare rounds. Checked his side arm, that he had never fired except on the range. There were guns up ahead and if the boys had guessed right, and if he had guessed right, there was some shooting coming because there was no way he could persuade them to leave things alone. He walked along to where the stream came down, glistening now in the morning light, and stepped across the line and on to the grass, leaning forward into the hill as he scrambled up the loose shale, rifle in hand.

*   *   *

When we swung into the depot, there was a single light shining, high on a pole in a mess of bugs. They were burning theyselves to death. The Ford were off to the side but we saw it right off. Tying him up didn't seem so smart when once we had done it, but didn't seem much else to do, we want to get who we was after. Where was the two at? He must've known, or why was he here? So I says to Ralphy, we got to talk, find out what he know. He don't know nothing, he say, when I pulled the tape of'n him.

‘What you sitting here for, then?' I asks.

‘That you, Leroy?' he says.

‘Yeah, it Leroy.'

‘You done a dumb thing, you know that. You think I'm going to forget this?'

‘I don't give a fuck what you remember,' I says. ‘Where are they two?'

‘Could be anywhere. You know that. We're eighty miles or more from where they jumped. Could of stepped off anywhere.'

‘You think that, what for you sitting out here in a fancy car?'

‘You like it, do you?' he says, playing me for stupid.

‘They killed my brothers.'

‘Maybe,' he says.

‘Ain't no maybe. They dead and them two done it.'

‘Looks that way. A jury'll get to decide.'

‘We already got us a jury,' I says. ‘Where they at? They go up the hill,' I says, ‘or you reckon they split cross-country?'

‘Where's your dogs?'

Got it in one. Should of brought the dogs.

‘Fuck the dogs,' I says.

‘Probably,' he says. Then he says, ‘Take this stuff off my eyes.'

‘You be al' right you sit still. There's enough'n us to cover the points.'

‘Think about it,' he says. ‘Eighty miles and all they had to do was jump off on a curve. Could be anywhere. In a day they're out of the state. Leave it to us. We got cars and radios. We got … dogs.'

‘They ain't here, you ain't here.'

‘I'm just sleeping, or I was until you came by. Assault, that's what it is, you know, Leroy, assault. Can't look in the dark. Just catching some sleep, is all. Been checking the depots, seeing if anyone saw anything. Why would they get off here? I favour them just stepping off when it suited them. Untie me, Leroy, and I can maybe forget about it. Put it down to you being concerned over your brothers.'

‘Concerned,' I says, ‘that's what folks in the city feel maybe. Where I come from, we're fucking mad.'

‘Go home. Take your brothers and go back. If we get on their track, we'll let you know. Right away.'

I looks up at the light with the bugs banging against it and I think of him parking in this place and I know they here. He's just waiting for light.

‘They here,' I says.

‘Ain't likely,' he says.

‘One thing for sure, they not backtracking. They know we be following. You too, likely. And why they go on if they just climbed down off a train that would've taken them forward. Only two ways they could go.'

There was a smell about the car. Smelt of flowers or something. He smelt like a girl.

‘Leroy, leave it to me, leave it to us.'

‘I reckon we just leave you. Good to be talking to you,' I said, and stuck the tape back on his mouth. I don't know that I was sure before, but now I was. They were here all right. No one would choose this for a place to sleep, at least not him. He got soft hands. He would have taken his smart car and driven to some place with a bed. No, he were just waiting for the light and now so were we. There were four on us and we could split up like we had back at the river. They were here. I could smell it as clear as I smelt the flowers on the man that called hisself a sheriff.