Deviations (19 page)

I looked off in the direction that the shout had
come from. I spotted an older guy, in jeans and a military fatigue jacket,
beard and long hair, and, for some reason, a New York Yankees cap, the NY almost
invisible beneath years of dirt, grease, and green forest crud. He was walking
toward me, a pump-action shotgun up and in the firing position. Realizing that he’d
have a lot better chance disabling me with a shotgun than I would disabling him
with a pistol, I raised my arms.

“Hey,” I said, doing my best to sound friendly,
when he got to within ten yards. He stopped, kept his shotgun ready, didn’t say
anything. “Just passing through,” I said. “I’m gonna holster my pistol, okay?”

He nodded, almost imperceptibly. I slipped the
Colt into the holster, making sure he could see my hands the whole time. He
still didn’t say anything. “Now I’m gonna just keep going, okay?” I put my
hands up high. He moved the shotgun barrel in the direction he wanted me to go.
“Okay,” I said, “see ya.” I started walking south, my hands still high. After
fifty yards, I turned around. The guy and his wolfdog were gone. I felt some
rumbling in the vicinity of my colon, which I didn’t need at the moment. On the
positive side, however, I was walking with pretty high steps and a renewed
energy.

Chapter 18

I was two-hundred yards
north of the compound. There was still enough light for me to see the perimeter
of cleared land, the chain-link fence, and the two guard towers. Between them
sat the log-cabin church and the Reverend Christopher Barry’s white house with
its propane submarine and giant dish antenna.

I was crouched behind a boulder, about ten feet
across and six feet high at its tallest. This would be where I would hang out.
I’d be able to stand up and move around without being seen.

I put my backpack down and laid out the Mylar
blanket. I stuffed the Montana map deep inside. I had a pretty strong feeling
that I wouldn’t need it again, at least for now, perhaps ever again. Whatever
direction I’d be heading, there’d be something or someone on my tail, and I
probably wouldn’t have time to consult a map and weigh my choice of routes.

I tried to get the binoculars out of the heavy
plastic packaging they came in. Couldn’t. Remembered I had bolt cutters.
Success. I attached the strap to the binocs and scanned the complex. I started
with the guard towers. I could see a guy in the tower on the right, walking a
pattern around the perimeter of the small platform. He did a circuit every
thirty seconds, taking in the whole three-sixty. He was wearing the same gray and
black uniform as the patdown Nazi at the gate. He was a tall, thin man with a
shaved head. He carried the same AK-47 on his shoulder. Usually I admire
discipline in uniforms, weapons, and such, but this time I was hoping the tower
was unmanned, or that the guard was occupied with a DVD player and some porn.
No such luck. He was on duty, really into it, on the lookout for people like
me.

I couldn’t see anyone in the tower on the left. I
kept my binocs fixed on the tower, because the guard could be seated on the far
side and be invisible to me. A minute went by, then two minutes. This was good.
I thought maybe I could approach the compound from the east, about halfway
between the entrance gate and the tower. If there was no guard on the tower, I
might be able to cut through the fence in case I needed to get into the
compound. I still had no idea why I might want to do that, but thinking about
how to get in qualified as planning. It was at least a dot. I’d need another one
in order to connect the dots, but, like they say, a journey of a thousand miles
begins with a single step. I realized my feet hurt. I took off my boots to
inspect the damage.

Then, my dot got erased. I was working on my feet
when the whole damn sky over the compound lit up. Oh, that would be the serious
searchlights on each of the four corners of the two guard towers and, for good
measure, on the dinky guard booth at the entrance. The arc from the
searchlights was carefully calibrated to illuminate every inch of the fencing
and the cleared perimeter beyond it. It looked like the state fair had come to
town. No fried dough and beer, unfortunately, and any rides you went on would probably
get you killed. But my plan for cutting my way into the compound was definitely
not going to work.

Another uniformed Nazi emerged from the front side
of the church building and walked over to the guard tower to my left. His AK-47
slung over his shoulder, he climbed the ladder up to his post. Okay. Two guard
towers, two guards, each with a Kalash.

Time for some chicken tetrazzini. I knew my way
around propane camping stoves, but this was my first MRE. I ripped open the
package and studied the instructions. I put the food pouch into the heating
pouch. Then I poured water into the heating pouch and presto: the water set off
some chemical in the heating pouch. I closed up the heating pouch. It would
need ten minutes. I could feel the outside of the pouch getting hot. All kinds
of gurgling and hissing sounds were coming from inside. While the chicken was cooking,
I did the same with the powder that would turn into hot chocolate. I got my
plastic knife and fork and the napkin.

When the food and drink pouches were done, I
opened them up. Shit, a cloud of steam came pouring out. I waved my arms and
blew on it like a Clueless Dad in a sitcom.

After the steam was gone, I stuck my head over the
rock to check out the two guard towers. Apparently the smoke signals hadn’t
reached them.

In my months as a serious alcoholic, I’d found
that if I skip a meal or three, the food tastes better. Therefore, I was
looking forward to the chicken tetrazzini. Initial signs were all positive: it
was steaming hot, and a bunch of spicy aromas came floating out. Actually
eating the stuff was somewhat disappointing. I could taste some chicken-inspired
gray pencil erasers. The mushrooms and gravy were gooey packing peanuts. The pasta
was a buttery post-marathon innersole. I checked the list of ingredients on the
back of the pouch, but, surprisingly, it didn’t include
shit
. One thing
about this meal: it underscored the gravity of my situation. You couldn’t eat
an MRE and think things were looking up.

Another thing about my MRE: although the memories
might last a lifetime, the meal itself stayed inside me less than an hour. I
used the handles of the bolt cutters to dig a quick hole twenty yards downwind,
which I then filled. If I’d had enough time to consider the question of where
to locate the hole, I might have realized that straying from behind my rock
might not be all that intelligent. But I didn’t have enough time to give it
deep thought. All I knew was that I’d be dropping some industrial-strength shit
in just a moment, and I had no intention of dropping it right in the middle of
my living room.

I made it back behind my rock and dozed off,
pulling my Mylar blanket up around me. I lay still but I wasn’t really
sleeping. The furry woodland creatures were scurrying around like they owned
the place. Various aromas from my chicken tetrazzini, hot chocolate, and the
hole downwind must have gotten them all atwitter. I shoved the packages from
the MRE back into the cardboard box and tossed it toward the shithole. I didn’t
know what the animals were and didn’t care, as long as they were herbivores and
were willing to let me use these thirty square feet behind the rock for a
little while.

Dusk had fallen, and the cloud cover promised to
keep my area relatively dark. Looking through my binocs at the Rev’s white
house, I started to feel a little better about things. I could see into the
kitchen through a wide, shallow window. Alice was at her post, washing dishes.
Good. The living room had a picture window with no curtains or blinds or
anything to block my view. A flickering gray and white light from one corner
was probably Fat Ricky watching cartoons, although I couldn’t spot him from my
angle. A bulb from one of the lamps on the end tables flanking the couch threw
a dim light out into the room, but I couldn’t see anyone. There was a light
behind the drawn cloth curtains in what must have been the Rev’s bedroom, but I
didn’t see any activity there, either.

I sat back down behind the rock. I was running on
fumes, both mentally and physically. I tried to take stock of where I was, what
I was going to do next, how I might prepare for contingencies, but I came up
blank. I couldn’t get into the compound—and at the moment didn’t want to or
have a reason to. The best I could do now was keep watching and hope something
would happen in the Reverend Barry’s house that would help me understand what
was going on. And once I knew what was going on? Well, let’s not get ahead of
ourselves. It’s important to live in the moment, even if the moment, like this
one, really blows.

Time dragged. I kept my boots on, in case I needed
to move fast, but I had a nickel-sized blister below my left ankle. Even if I
had the motivation and strength to move fast, I doubt if I could. That, plus
the fact that my legs had gone rubbery and heavy, like I was wearing a wetsuit.

I was drifting off toward sleep. I usually start
dreaming before I fall asleep. I’m even aware of it, with me and anyone else in
my little Cranial Funhouse getting all elongated and walking funny, saying
things that they wouldn’t say in real life. Not like they speak honestly,
telling their real feelings. That would be interesting and instructive. But it
was nothing that straightforward. More like the words don’t exactly make sense.
The sentences start off heading straight down a street, but then they go off-road
and get filmy and evaporate like steam coming out of a kettle. Yet nobody seems
to notice or get self-conscious about it. It’s like everyone’s got an IV in
their arm and is counting backward from ten, and we’re all at about seven. It’s
pleasantly low-stress. I don’t mind that all the stuff I say isn’t making sense
or connecting with what other people are saying. That’s pretty much me when I’m
awake.

When I slide from my sorta dreams into real
dreams, things can get hinky. And that’s what they got. Me and Ryan and Nick
Corelli were down in Harold Breen’s office, and he was giving us the statistics
on Dolores Weston: fifty-nine-year-old white woman, sixty-eight inches tall,
and all that. Then, he lifts the cloth off her body, but it’s me on the table.
Me with half my head caved in, ropes of dried blood all over my hair, my eye
dangling out of its socket, half full of blood. I’m not standing there with
Ryan and Nick, I’m on the table, and Harold’s gazing at me, a puzzled look
coming over his face. He checks the clipboard again and says, “I’m sorry, I was
looking at the wrong chart. The decedent is Detective Karen Seagate, a forty-two-year-old
Caucasian woman, sixty-nine inches tall …”

I flinched and gave out a sharp yelp, waking
myself up. I know I’m going to die, probably pretty soon, maybe tonight or
tomorrow. Still, it gets your attention when you hear one of your buddies at
work talking about you in the past tense. I was shaking good, partly from the
cold, partly from the dream. I tried to jolly myself along, thinking that
getting upset about seeing my busted-up bod on the table meant that I didn’t
want to die, at least not yet. But maybe it was just the shock of seeing the
damage, and it didn’t say anything about whether I was okay with the general
idea of dying. You can’t tell, really. Who would you ask?

But this dream was gruesome because seeing Dolores
Weston’s face a few days ago was a real horrorshow. Long, long time ago, when I
was drinking—that was last week—I never had those dreams about me dying. I had
my share of nightmares, but they were all when I was awake. I slept like a
baby: a baby that threw up a lot and wet the bed occasionally. Bottom line: drunk
or sober, you pay either way.

The shakes were starting to smooth out a bit when
I heard the unmistakable thunk of a car door shutting in the distance. I got my
binocs and saw half a Hyundai sedan parked on the far side of the Rev’s house.
It was new and shiny clean but with a splatter of yellow and green bugs
decorating the front fender and grill. The driver had used his wipers to clear
the carcasses, leaving a pastel fan-shaped arc looking like bad eyeliner. Part
of the front license plate was visible. It started with 23, which is the number
for the Rawlings area.

There were some people moving around in the
kitchen, but I couldn’t recognize anyone. Then I saw the bedroom light go out,
then Christopher Barry lumbering across the living room and into the kitchen. I
stood there, leaning against the rock, the binocs focused on the kitchen,
spasms of pain running up and down my spine like a local train making every
stop.

After fifteen minutes I couldn’t take it any
longer and melted into a blob on my blanket. I tried to stretch away the pain
with some basic yoga stretches—forward bend, cobra, and downward-facing dog—but
the kinks had moved in and were determined to stay a while. I lay flat on my
back, letting myself feel crappy. I was hungry, my blister stung, my legs and
back ached, my gut was still churning from the MRE coming in, and my asshole
was still hot from the MRE going out. Plus, I was cold. Did I mention scared
shitless? Well, very scared, but not literally shitless. That would take
probably another hour.

After a few minutes or a half hour—I can’t be
sure, not being quite tuned in—I struggled back to my feet. I found a different
part of the boulder to lean on. It was only three feet high, so I could kneel
and not feel it so bad in my back. The kitchen was dark now, and the light was
back on in the bedroom. The living room was lit by both lamps from the end
tables. Fat Ricky’s TV was off. The Rev was standing there, his back to the big
picture window. He was hard to mistake, with his shock of white hair, his wide
torso, and his double-wide ass. His arms were gesturing. He was talking to
someone I couldn’t see. He looked agitated.

The Rev shifted, and I could see an arm. A sport
jacket or suit, dark blue or black. A crisp white shirt cuff. Definitely not
Fat Ricky or Alice. The two men kept talking, me thinking, Down in front. Finally,
finally, the guy in the suit stepped up to the window, like he was looking
right at me. Now his hands were in his pockets. It was a black suit, nice white
shirt, no tie, thick chest hair visible at the open collar. Hair black as
night, curly. Full beard, black with some red flecks. He didn’t smile, so I
couldn’t see his pearlies. But there was no doubt about it. The Reverend
Christopher Barry was hosting Agent Nick Corelli of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation.

There’s not too much I’m sure of these days, but I
was reasonably certain that this was not a positive development.