Nightwoods - Charles Frazier [90]
Shit piles fast and deep when you act on one bad idea right after another. No going back, though. You can’t fix the past. It’s broken beyond repair, not worth thinking about. And there’s no predicting the future, at least beyond the knowledge that you can’t expect any mercy whatsoever from it. Anything you try to do to shape it in your favor is likely to rain down a deluge on all your hopes. So what to do right here, right now? Maybe be patient, play a few games of eight ball, and see if an idea arises.
And it does. Late afternoon, one of the regulars comes in talking about the volunteer rescue squad loading gear into their trucks in the parking lot behind the sheriff’s office. Off to look for a couple of kids missing around the other side of the lake. Possibly with a pony. The fellow worked himself up in the telling, pretty excited and fraught as he went on about the wild country over there, the lost little ones. The cold death they’ll die for sure up on the high mountain.
People can get so sentimental about a couple of stray youngsters. But the little bastards lighting out offers new possibilities. What a blessing it would be if they passed. How long, though, since blessings got bestowed? Long time.
So, what are the chances that a couple of frigid morns up on the ridges will lay the kids down for good. Slim to none. Bud figures they might need helping along to the next world. And if they’re never found, nobody will think anything but that they died in a rock crevasse or deep in a laurel hell.
Sundown, Bud drives around to his best clients, letting them know he’ll be taking a few weeks’ vacation, maybe as high as a month. So they better order big for his next run. Full payment in front like always. Except prices are up. No explanations or excuses, gas going up or whatever. Life can get fucked up fast when you try to be a pleaser. Because people won’t ever be pleased, not even if you drop them ass-first into paradise. They like bitching too much.
By the time he’s done with his rounds, Bud has a couple of rolls that should let him drive until there’s no more road to ride. Wipe the board clean and start over. New places, new people. Nobody to witness against you. Let the past be what it is. Gone, gone, gone. Drive until you hit water too wide to cross. California, maybe. Or South Florida, the drain at the end of America’s bathtub. Mexico, that’s where cowboy outlaws used to go. Live another life under palm trees at land’s end like a new-minted soul.
So who’s standing in the way of clearing the tracks for good and heading out? Two, is all. Or four, if things turn real messy. And one thing Bud knows for sure, it’s blood washes things clean.
WHEN STUBBLEFIELD gets back to the Lodge from bringing more clothes and records and books from his garage apartment and buying sacks of groceries, the sun is falling to the ridges. It’s not dim enough for headlights, though the sky to the west is forming sunset bands of violet and iron. Around the last bend in the road, he sees the door standing open. Through the windows, every electric bulb in the Lodge blazes. He drives across the lawn to the steps and runs inside, calling for Luce. No answer, and when he stops in the lobby and listens, he knows right away the place is empty. Back out on the porch, he gets still and hears Luce, way up the lakeshore, calling for Dolores and Frank. Her voice thin and frantic.
Stubblefield grabs the flashlight from its place by the back door. Runs to the car and reaches the .32–20 from under the seat, and an extra handful of cartridges from one of the boxes, destroying the precise grid. He stuffs the pistol into his pocket and runs along the shore, stopping over and over to listen for Luce’s voice. When he catches up with her, she stands dazed and numb at the edge of the water.
He holds her, and she falls into him briefly, like he’s her last shelter. And then she squirms to get out of his arms to do what needs to be done. Searching. Blaming herself.
—What? You ought to