Go With Me Page 10

  “Another college girl,” said D.B.

  “What do you mean, another?” Whizzer asked him.

  “Like What’s-her-name,” said D.B. “Goes around, thinks she’s something special. Gets jammed up.”

  “This one’s no college girl,” said Whizzer. “Our girl ain’t.”

  “Ain’t she?” D.B. asked. “She thinks she is. Acts like she is. Her and her You people. Thinks she’s something.”

  “Still,” said Whizzer, “she ain’t no college girl. I told you that before.”

  “Con’s a college man,” said D.B. “What do you say?” he asked Conrad. “She look like a college girl to you?”

  “Probably not,” said Conrad.

  “See, there?” said Whizzer. “What did I say?”

  “Hard to tell sometimes, though,” said Conrad.

  “Point is,” said Coop. “Nobody ever heard from the girl again. The other one. She just disappeared up there.”

  “Somebody said she took off because she was in trouble,” said D.B. “She was getting ready to have the wrong guy’s kid.”

  “For that she vanishes into the wilderness?” Conrad asked. “Because she’s knocked up? Because she’s been screwing around? A Bennington girl? Come on. I’m a college man, you know. My sister went to Bennington. At Bennington for screwing around you get Phi Beta Kappa.”

  “What’s Phi Beta Kappa?” asked D.B.

  From the turnout where they had left the truck, a trail, two wheel ruts with wild grasses growing waist-high between them, went sharply uphill. To either side, in the brush growth, hardhack lifted its fuzzy flowers like pink tapers, and wild blackberries reached for them with their barbed canes. The three walked in single file: first Nate, then Lillian, then Lester, limping along in the rear carrying his parcel snug under his right arm. Little orange butterflies skipped back and forth across the track in front of them, like ragged children running in front of a procession, and overhead a hawk or some other such bird sailed high above them in the blue, its wings unmoving, rising and falling lazily on the wind that passed over the mountain’s side and breathed faintly in the thick woods around them.

  They weren’t the first to have come up this way recently. The grass in the center of the track was knocked down flat, and here and there they passed a rock in one of the ruts with a black graze of rubber on it, or they saw a place where a heavy tire had come down and printed its tread into the bare dirt.

  Lillian watched Nate walking in front of her. Nate walked with his head down, staring at the ground before him. His strides were long and heavy; his shoulders rose and fell. Nate wore a dirty gray T-shirt that was printed across the back in blue letters: S.T.U.D.

  “What’s S.T.U.D.?” Lillian asked.

  Lester snorted from the rear, but Nate walked on without answering.

  “Hey, Nate?” Lillian asked.

  “Yo.”

  “What’s S.T.U.D.?”

  “What?”

  “S.T.U.D.,” Lillian said. “Your shirt.”

  “What about it?”

  “Well,” Lillian asked, “what is it? What does it mean?”

  “What do you think it means?” Lester asked her from behind.

  “It don’t mean nothing,” said Nate. “They were giving them away.”

  “Don’t believe him,” said Lester. “His girlfriend gave it to him. Didn’t she, Nate? That Rowena gave it to you, didn’t she?”

  “No,” said Nate.

  “Rowena?” asked Lillian.

  “Works at the clinic,” said Lester. “She’s a nurse, ain’t she? Ain’t she some kind of a nurse?”

  “She’s a technician,” said Nate.

  “I’ll bet she is,” said Lester.

  “What?” said Nate.

  “Gave the boy that S.T.U.D. shirt for his birthday,” said Lester. “You know why.”

  “She didn’t,” said Nate. “They were giving them away.”

  “She was, anyway,” said Lester.

  “What?” said Nate.

  “Nothing,” said Lester.

  “She ain’t my girlfriend,” said Nate.

  Lillian walked on. She watched Nate. She watched the T-shirt stretch across his shoulders and over the muscle in his back. It wasn’t a bad-looking back, come to it. Come to it, Nate wasn’t badlooking goods. Not at all. Not from the back. But Rowena? What kind of a name was Rowena, anyway? It was a woodchuck name. It was a name like Tiffany or Brittney — the name of a girl who marries a guy with a large back. A back like Nate’s. She marries a guy like Nate. He marries her. They live in East Schmuckville. What would Kevin have had to say about them? She could hear Kevin. She could hear Kevin talking about Nate and Rowena. She could hear Kevin’s contempt. But Kevin was gone, wasn’t he?

  “She ain’t either my girlfriend,” said Nate, walking ahead.

  “Like you say, ‘into the wilderness’?” said Coop. “That ain’t wilderness. The Towns ain’t wilderness like you’ve got in Maine, Canada, out West.”

  “Well,” said Whizzer, “but this ain’t out West. Here, if the Towns ain’t wilderness, they’ll do until the real thing comes along.”

  “Which it won’t,” said Coop.

  “Won’t what?” D.B. asked him.

  “You know,” said Coop. “The woods. The Towns. They ain’t coming, they’re going. They’re going now. People moving in, clearing, building. Roads and what have you. It’s all going away.”

  “Not in the Towns,” said D.B. “That’s all government land, up there.”

  “There, too,” said Coop. “Government land? So what if it is? The government bought it, the government can sell it. If people want that land, they’ll have it. The government can’t stop them.”

  “They are the government,” said Conrad.

  “There you go,” said Coop. “Someday that will be like the suburbs up there: little streets, little houses.”

  “Lawns,” said Whizzer. “Guys out after work, cutting the grass.”

  “Schools,” said Coop.

  “Wal-Mart,” said Conrad. “Colonel Sanders.”

  “Taco Bell,” said D.B.

  “Bars,” said Coop. “You can stop off for a beer.”

  “Don’t sound so bad, at that, does it?” said Whizzer.

  Nate turned back to look for Lester. He pointed up the trail ahead of them. There, visible through the green woods, a shining, a flashing — something bright.

  Lester came from the rear and signaled to Lillian and Nate to stay where they were. Then he went forward toward the bright object. The track took a bend, and Lester disappeared around it, into the trees.

  Lillian went to a boulder beside the trail and rested against it.

  “Nate?” she asked.

  “Yo,” said Nate.

  “What’s the plan, here?”

  “What?”

  “What’s the plan, for Blackway?” asked Lillian. “Your and Lester’s plan, for when we find him?”

  “Plan?”

  “That’s right. Like with the others — Murdock, the rest of them. You’ve got a plan, right?”

  “I ain’t afraid of Blackway,” said Nate.

  “No, but Lester,” said Lillian. “He’s got a plan, doesn’t he? With the gun he’s got? Something?”

  “Thought you didn’t want no guns in this,” said Nate. “Before, you didn’t want no guns.”

  “Look,” said Lillian. “What I want is for this to be over with. I want you — I want us — to take care of Blackway. I want to know how that’s going to happen.”

  “Well,” said Nate, “all I know is I ain’t afraid of Blackway.”

  Lester came back around the bend. “Come ahead,” he said. Lillian pushed herself up off her seat and followed Nate.

  A big Ford pickup truck was parked beside the trail. It was fairly new, black, with the body cranked up high off its axles atop oversized tires.

  “That’s Blackway’s,” said Lillian.

  Nate was beside the truck, looking into the driver’s
-side window.

  “Keys are in it,” he said.

  “He forgot the keys?” Lillian asked.

  “He didn’t forget them,” Lester said. “He left them. Why not? Anybody who knows whose truck this is ain’t about to steal it.”

  “What if they don’t know whose it is?” Lillian asked.

  “They know,” said Lester. “If they’re up here, they know.” To Nate he said, “Go ahead.”

  Nate opened the truck’s door and took the keys from the ignition. He tossed them over the hood to Lester. Lester caught the keys and held them up, showing them to Lillian.

  “You understand,” Lester said. He was speaking to both of them. “You understand we’re about down on it, now.” He jingled the keys. “If we take Blackway’s keys, here — what I mean, once we take them, he’s stuck, but so are we. We can’t turn this thing around. If we do this, we got to finish it. We got to go through. You see that.”

  “I do,” said Lillian.

  “I ain’t afraid of Blackway,” said Nate.

  15

  GOING THROUGH

  “Beer’s by you, ain’t it?” Whizzer said to Conrad.

  “It is,” said Conrad. He reached into the case and brought forth four more cans.

  D.B. opened his beer, drank, belched.

  “All right,” he said. “You were talking about the Towns? All right, you can argue about whether to call it wilderness up there and how much longer you’re going to be able to call it whatever you decide to call it. Point is, now, today, that’s still wild country, the Towns.”

  “A man can be free up there,” said Coop.

  “Blackway thinks so,” said Whizzer.

  “No women,” said D.B.

  “No kids,” said Coop.

  “No traffic,” said D.B.

  “No phones,” said Coop.

  “No cops,” said Whizzer.

  “No cops?” said Conrad. “What about Wingate?”

  “What about him?” asked Coop.

  “Wingate’s sheriff,” said Whizzer. “Sheriff’s a county officer. The Towns are over the line.”

  “Sheriff’s office can go in there if they have to, though,” said D.B.

  “Not by law, they can’t,” said Whizzer.

  “Not by law,” said Coop. “Whiz is right. By law, the Towns are out of Wingate’s beat. By law, they are. And we all know how Wingate feels about the law.”

  “Here we go,” said Whizzer.

  “We all know,” Coop went on, “how Wingate will ride the law even when it don’t make sense to ride it, even when the law ain’t what it’s all about. Like with that girl and Blackway.”

  “That wasn’t about the law?” Whizzer asked him.

  “No,” said Coop. “It wasn’t. The law ain’t what What’s-hername needed. She needed help. Wingate and his law blew her off. Where is she now?”

  “Don’t know,” said D.B. “Do you?”

  “Listen,” said Whizzer. “Wingate knows what he’s doing. He knew she needed help. She told him. If he didn’t go to help her himself, it was because he had a better plan.”

  “Right,” said Coop. “Scotty Cavanaugh. Scotty was a hell of a plan of Wingate’s, wasn’t he?”

  “Well,” said Whizzer. “Where’s Scotty now?”

  “Far away as he can get,” said Coop.

  “So, what do you make of that?” Whizzer asked him.

  “Nothing,” said Coop. “I don’t make nothing of it. Wingate didn’t know Scotty wouldn’t be going with her. He didn’t know Scotty wouldn’t be here.”

  “Didn’t he?” said Whizzer.

  Lester stopped. “We’re getting close,” he said. “You two wait here a minute. I’ll go on up to the corner there and take a little look.”

  He went ahead up the track, carrying his parcel under his arm. He disappeared around a bend. Lillian and Nate stood in the trail. The long afternoon quickened its pace as the sun, white, then yellow, then gold, fell steadily toward the hills. Now the dips in the trail were in shadow.

  Lillian sat down in the grass beside the trail. Nate stood. He looked down at Lillian, looked away. He was bouncing gently on the balls of his feet, pacing, restless. They had walked three miles over broken ground, and Nate couldn’t stand still. Lillian was all in. Her side hurt, her ankles hurt. Her clothes stuck to her. She pushed her damp hair back behind her ears with her fingers. She looked up at Nate.

  “Take it easy,” said Lillian. “Rest. What’s the matter with you?”

  “Who?”

  “You. Dancing around. Relax. Here, sit down.” Lillian patted the ground beside her.

  “I’ll stand,” said Nate.

  Lillian looked up at him. “Rowena, huh?” she asked. “Rowena what?”

  “She ain’t my girlfriend,” said Nate.

  “Lester thinks she is.”

  “Les don’t know everything.”

  “What’s her last name?”

  “Whose?”

  “Rowena’s.”

  “Pinto,” said Nate.

  “Rowena Pinto,” said Lillian. “Are you going to get married?”

  “Who?”

  Lillian shook her head. She kept on shaking it. She began to laugh. She began, and then she couldn’t stop.

  “What’s the matter?” Nate asked her.

  “Nothing,” said Lillian. She went on laughing.

  “Yeah, well, cut it out,” said Nate. “You sound like that one at the High Line.”

  “I know,” she said. “I know I do.”

  “Come on, now,” said Nate.

  Gasping, Lillian let her laughter trickle away. It ran out of her like the last water runs out of a drain. This was not going to work.

  “This isn’t going to work, is it?” Lillian said.

  “What?” asked Nate.

  Lilllian shook her head. Blackway rose before her like a dark wall, he watched her. He broke Kevin like a pencil. He blew Kevin out like a birthday candle. He erased him. What had Kevin looked like? Lillian couldn’t remember. Blackway filled the rear of her little car with shattered glass, he caught her little cat in his hands and held her as she struggled. He took what he wanted, he did what he wanted. Nobody could stop him. Nate was big, but size wasn’t enough. And anyway, Nate belonged to Rowena Pinto, didn’t he? Nate and Rowena would marry. Of course they would. They weren’t like her. They would marry and start making babies, and all of them would be boys, every one of them; even the girls would be boys. You couldn’t get away from it. You couldn’t. If you tried, there was Blackway. Tears stood on Lillian’s cheeks. She brushed them away with her fingers.

  “Are you okay?” Nate was asking her.

  Lillian sniffed. She had stopped laughing, she had stopped crying. “I’m okay,” she said.

  “Here’s Les,” said Nate.

  Lillian looked up the trail where Lester came around the bend and approached them. He was limping worse than he had been earlier, and he leaned on a branch he had cut for a staff. Lillian watched him. Nate and Rowena’s boys would grow up and get old and soon they would be all shot. They would be like Lester and like the broken-down, cackling old clowns who sat around the mill all day, cracking one another up, and farting, and scratching their useless crotches. They didn’t like her. They didn’t like her hair, they didn’t like her mouth. They didn’t like anything about her. They had sent her out here with a sixth-grade dropout and a senior citizen who could hardly walk. They wouldn’t be her protectors, even if they could. None of them would. This thing was not going to work.

  “I’m okay,” Lillian said again.

  “Come on, Whiz,” said Coop. “You’re telling me Wingate had this whole thing down? He knew Scotty wasn’t going to be here when that girl came? He knew Les and Nate were? He knew you’d have them go with her?”

  “You said it,” said Whizzer. “Not me.”

  “You don’t believe that,” said Coop.

  “Don’t I?” said Whizzer. “Well, maybe I don’t. Maybe I do. But I’ll tell you
something else: Wingate knows plenty. You fellows don’t give Wingate much credit. He’s not so dumb.”

  “Ain’t he?” asked Coop. “He fooled me.”

  “Maybe he did, at that,” said Whizzer. “You wouldn’t be the first. You ever played cards with Wingate?”

  “Cards?” Coop asked.

  “This young fellow remembers,” Whizzer said, grinning at D.B. “Don’t you?”

  D.B. was chuckling and shaking his head. “Like it was yesterday,” he said. “Like it was this morning. I never did know what that was all about, though, did you? Did Wingate really have that thing fixed?”

  “You can take it to the bank,” said Whizzer. “Have what thing fixed?” Conrad asked.

  Lester beckoned to them. “Come ahead,” he said. “It’s right around the corner.”

  “What is?” Lillian asked.

  “Blackway’s,” said Lester.

  “Is he there?” Lillian asked.

  “Nobody’s there,” Lester said.

  “Listen, Lester —” Lillian began. Lester didn’t hear.

  “We’ll wait for him,” said Lester. “It works fine. I’d rather him walk in on us than us on him. Come ahead.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Lillian. But Lester had turned off the trail with Nate following. Lillian had no choice. She went after them.

  Past the bend, the trail ran downhill into a shallow bowl in the mountains. On the right, the woods; on the left, a large barren, one of the old sawmill tailings, covering a couple of acres with a desert of packed sawdust: brown, hot, drifted into peaks and hummocks, practically void of growth except for a few weeds, a few tough dry stalks that hung on here and there, stirring in the little wind that passed over the waste.

  “What’s this?” Lillian asked.

  “This was Boyd’s Job,” said Lester. “There were fifty men working in here. First work I ever had was here — first work in the woods. Right after the war.”

  “What’s that?” Lillian asked. She pointed across the clearing.

  “That’s Blackway’s,” said Lester.

  Standing in a far corner of the barren ground was a house — in reality not a house, but an old bus, painted sky blue, without wheels, sitting down on its axles in the sawdust. Some of the windows were covered with plywood, and a stovepipe came out of one of them.