Guns [John Hardin 01] (4 page)

Sam had to admit the insoles seemed to stimulate his feet somehow, either the knobs or the magnets evidently at work, thinking maybe she’s not such a bad sales person after all.

“Mmmmm,” he said. “Not bad.”

“Go ahead, wear them for a day or two. Pam said to give them a good fair trial. You let me know what you think and then I’ll try them.”

“Is this my second reward?”

She smiled slyly and said, “Not hardly.”

They played a game of Monopoly at the kitchen table, Joshua winning with only a little sneaky assistance from Sam. Then they sat on the couch, Joshua snuggled in the middle, and laughed uproariously together through an old episode of “The Angry Beavers”—the one in which Norb fakes illness and wears his concerned brother Dag out waiting on him, trying to satisfy an endless list of increasingly outrageous requests, but Dag finally manages to turn the tables. They watched a chatty Australian naturalist in his baggy shorts picking up deadly snakes in the wild and tickling alligators and eating something he scraped off of a stump, all much to Joshua’s delight. Then Valerie decreed it was bed time.

“Do I have to take a shower?” Joshua asked pathetically.

“Well, you had one yesterday, so I guess we can skip tonight,” she said, “but you still have to brush your teeth.
All
of your teeth.”

They hugged him and both tucked him in. He called Sam back into his room for a drink of water. Then he called him in again to turn on the night light. The third time Sam went into his room he was sitting Indian-style in the middle of his bed.

He said, “Sam look, I can almost snap my toes.” With his thumb he folded his second toe over the top of his big toe and flicked them. “See? Almost a snap. I bet you can’t do that.”

“Good goo. I sure can’t. That’s a pretty good trick. Now, what say you hunker down under these covers and think about having the best dream ever.” Sam sat on the edge of the bed. “About Luke and Han and Leia, maybe. What kind of adventure do you think they’re having right now? Maybe they’re flying the
Millennium Falcon
down, down, down to a planet that’s glowing in the light from its star. Its great oceans glimmering even from way out in space. Pure white swirls of cloud hundreds of miles across. The sensors showing thousands of incredible life forms below…” He talked on quietly for five minutes, weaving a fantasy about a miraculous planet not at all unlike Earth, watching the boy’s eyelids flutter and his breathing slow, until he finally drifted off on a smile.

Sam and Valerie sat on the couch with cups of hot green tea.

Valerie looked at him evenly and said, “Sam, tell me about yourself.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Everything there is to know. Start with when you were zero and give me an autobiography.”

He couldn’t bring himself to tell her what she probably had every right to know by now, yet he didn’t want to lie to her. He had fully intended to tell her all of it, but had just kept putting it off.

He said, “Well you pretty much know it all. I grew up in Massachusetts, in the Berkshires. My parents died three months apart when I was eighteen. I was always interested in flying. There was enough money to pay for most of my training. Then I didn’t want to go the airlines route so I started flying charters. Hauling freight. Towing banners with Super Cubs. You know, ‘Meet ‘N Eat At Pete’s Pizza.’ I worked as a corporate pilot. Saved up enough to buy the Cessna. Found my way out here to Ocracoke. You’ve been right there for the rest.”

She gave him an exasperated frown and said, “You know if you tried harder you could probably be even a little more vague.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s something else, isn’t there? A big something else you’re not telling me.”

He could feel her starting to withdraw from him.

“Why do you say that?” he said lamely.

“You have nightmares and you mumble things.”

“Val, I…”

She shook her head quickly and said, “No. Never mind. I don’t mean to pry or nag. Some day when you feel you can trust me to handle it, you’ll tell me.”

He said, “Look, all that matters, really, is that I found you and Joshua here on this island and since then things couldn’t be much better, as far as I’m concerned.”

He used the remote to switch on the news. They both watched in uncomfortable silence for a while.

Then a report came on about a new eruption of violence outside Kosovo. There was hastily-shot footage of masked men boldly brandishing what looked to be new AK-47 assault rifles and shouting. Sam abruptly grabbed up the remote and cut the TV off. He sat there staring at nothing. Brooding.

She studied him searchingly, but gradually her frown faded to be replaced by a resigned smile. She canted her head, raised an eyebrow, and brought her fingertips up to trace the line of his jaw.

For a dreamlike time they touched and caressed like teenagers, Sam gradually drifting back from wherever he had gone in his mind.

Then she got up, pulled her heirloom turquoise and silver clip off to let her long hair swirl free, and tugged at his hand.

“Take me to bed,” she said.

He cleared his throat and said, “I was wondering.”

“What,” she said a little breathlessly.

“Well, should I keep my magnets on?”

“I’ll slap you. I swear I will.”

Not long later, in the low light from a single candle on her bedside stand, with the blue moonlight softly tinting the sheer window curtains, while he held himself up on his forearms to just brush her nipples with his chest, his fingers loosely splayed in her hair, both of them willing themselves still for a long moment, freezing time, she said,

“Those gray eyes. Sometimes…like a wolf.”

“Do I frighten you?”

She gave him a feral smile and whispered, “Not hardly.”

And she pulled him down to kiss him hungrily.

4

T
HE DAY WAS BRASSY, WITH THE TEMPERATURE IN THE
high seventies, so Sam had the top off of the Jeep when he picked Joshua up from kindergarten. A frayed flight bag on the back seat held a bag of corn chips and a thermos of ice-cold root beer, the boy’s favorite snack fare, along with other items purchased that morning at the General Store. Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings were on the tape player doing “If I Can Find A Clean Shirt,” the Mexican trumpets harmonizing soulfully in the background, so Sam and the boy sang along loudly as the breeze flailed their hair.

He drove to the airstrip and parked by the Cessna.

“We goin’ flying?” Joshua asked.

“Nope. Your mom doesn’t want the two of us to go up unless she’s with us.”

“Why?”

“It’s just the way moms are. Sometimes it’s hard to understand them. Tell you what, though, as moms go I think you got lucky and got a really good one.”

“I know.”

“I thought I’d clean this old plane up a little. Why don’t you look in that blue bag there? Whatever you find inside you can keep.”

Joshua unzipped the bag and came up with a yellow dozer with a backhoe attached and a Ford Explorer towing a runabout on a trailer that had a working winch. “Hey, cool,” he said. “Thank you, Sam.” He immediately put the dozer to work on a sandy patch behind the plane.

Sam got out a gallon of dry wash, towels, and a three-step folding ladder. He turned the Jeep’s player back on with a tape that was a compilation of his favorites. Ray Charles and Willie doing “Seven Spanish Angels". Waylon and his Jessi Colter doing stuff from their old
Leather and Lace
album like “Waltz Across Texas” and “Wild Side Of Life". Willie and friends again doing “Slow Movin’ Outlaw” and “Are There Any More Real Cowboys” and “Tryin’ To Outrun The Wind".

He set to work swabbing on the dry wash, letting it haze, then wiping it off to leave a fresh luster and a protective coating. The constant sun and the salt air were taking an inexorable toll on the paint job despite his efforts. Twice a year he removed all the inspection plates and used a pump garden sprayer to mist expensive corrosion proofing into all areas to fight the sea air. Then, for weeks he would have to swab away black streaks that seeped out between the aluminum skin overlaps. The dry wash did a good job of removing stubborn black stains, chalking, and leading-edge bugs, but required a considerable amount of elbow flexing to scrub all the surface area on the plane.

When Willie’s rendition of “Honky Tonk Woman” came on he did some fancy footwork on the top step of the ladder and sang along, and Joshua jumped up to dance enthusiastically as well, giggling when Sam nodded his approval.

When the tape ran out Joshua made construction noises for a while and then said, “Becky Sampson said there used to be horses on Ocracoke. Is that so?”

“Yup. That’s why that motel in town is called the Pony Island.”

“How come there was horses here?”

“A long time ago men used to ride along the beaches looking for wrecked ships, to help save the people and to salvage the cargoes.”

Over the decades the 125-mile stretch of the Outer Banks—despite six lighthouses, the most famous of which was the spiral-painted brick Hatteras light, tallest in the nation—had claimed some seven hundred known vessels, earning the title Graveyard Of The Atlantic. Once in a while the sands here or there would shift to expose the ribs of some old wreck, only to soon shift back and cover them up again. The elements reminding Bankers, hey, don’t forget what we can do.

“The men stopped riding the beaches but some of the horses stayed on and became wild,” he told Joshua. “They learned to take care of themselves. There haven’t been any on Ocracoke for a while, but there’s still a small herd down on Shackleford Bank where there aren’t any people. I’ve seen them lots of times from the air.” The shaggy animals resembled the wild mustang, and Sam always enjoyed spotting them running free among the dunes whenever he happened to be flying down that way.

“What do they eat?” Joshua asked. “And what do they drink? ‘Cause you can’t drink the ocean.”

“Good questions. They eat the marsh grasses and they drink rain water or they use their hooves to dig down to get water that’s fresh enough. Once a year some people have a roundup so a vet can look the horses over for any that need doctoring, and they rope a few and sell them to keep the herd small enough so all the horses that are left have enough to eat.”

Joshua thought for a while and said, “Sam will you help me buy a horse? I got money in my bank.”

“Now, where are you going to put a horse? In your bedroom?”

“We could build a big fence right here near the airport and then I could sell rides on him like you sell rides in your airplane and there would be a horse on Ocracoke again.”

“Hmmm. Not a bad idea. Maybe some day. We’ll see.”

“You know, Sam, grown-ups always say maybe and we’ll see. I think they really just mean no.”

“What you need there is a house on the top of that hill you just built,” Sam said, changing the subject. “Take a look in the back of the Jeep. There’s a small empty box in there you can use.”

Sam finished the tops of the wings, the vertical stabilizer and rudder, and the top surfaces of the horizontal stabilizer and the elevator, then stood back and said, “What do you think of the old girl?”

“Good goo, she’s shiny. Can I please sit inside?”

Sam lifted him up onto the pilot’s seat and put the headset on him. “You push here to talk and let go to listen. Do you remember what I told you about the instruments? Which one tells you how high you are?”

Joshua pointed at once to the altimeter.

“Which one tells you how fast you’re going?”

He reached over to tap the face of the airspeed indicator with a small finger.

“Which one lets you know if you’re upside-down or right side up?”

He pointed at the attitude indicator.

Sam described what some of the other instruments and gauges were for and the boy paid rapt attention. Then he gripped the yoke and made airplane noises.

“You know it’s getting on toward supper time,” Sam said. “Maybe we should call it a day. I can finish up here tomorrow.”

“Sam, can we go for a little walk on the beach?”

“Sure, you bet. Let’s pick things up first, though.”

They walked along the access road through the dune line and headed northeast alongside the lazily breaking rollers, Joshua stopping frequently to investigate a glinting shell or a ghost crab den. There were several four-wheel-drive pickups and sport utilities parked on the beach, rods propped in PVC pipe sections hammered into the sand, monofilament lines like spider strands angling out into the surf, people sitting patiently in comfortable old clothes on tilted canvas chairs and gazing out to sea as the nearest star slowly rolled aflame down the sky behind the island.

They stopped to watch a small gang of porpoises loping along out in the glassy swells. They had a baby with them, and it would come almost all the way out of the water as it surfaced frequently to breathe, two adults never more than a few feet away from it.

Something over by the dune line caught Joshua’s attention and he ran ahead to investigate, stopping to look closer and then turning to shout, “Sam, Sam. Come here quick.”

It was a Bonaparte’s gull, trapped in one of the holes of a translucent plastic six-pack retainer, fluttering and flopping, trying to free itself and move away from them.

Joshua looked up at him with an anguished expression and said, “You gotta help him, Sam.”

“Let’s step back a way so he’ll calm down. We’re in his space here. Why don’t we both help him?”

“I don’t know how. Oh, please, Sam.”

Sam took off his denim shirt, walked up to the bird very slowly and spread it out all the way over him, and the covered bird settled down.

“Okay. Now you feel through the cloth and hold him. Try to watch out for his wings. Try to fold them back against his body and then hold him still.”

“Sam, I can’t do it.”

“Yes, you can. Just take your time and be careful.”

After considerable nervous fumbling Joshua managed to do it. Sam got out his pocket knife. “Now, what we’ll do is work the cloth back enough so we can see that plastic around him. Hold him, and let’s do it slowly.”

When the plastic was exposed Sam slipped the blade in deftly and slit the plastic. He stepped back. “Okay, Josh. Let him go,” thinking
let’s hope he didn’t break a wing trying to get loose earlier.

When Joshua stepped away the gull fluttered and screamed raucously, trying to regain some of its avian dignity, then it flapped tentatively and took off, faltering a little but flying.

Joshua wiped his hands on his pants absently and grinned widely, watching the bird fly away.

“Good job,” Sam said.

“Yeah,” Joshua said.

Sam stuffed the plastic in his back pocket and picked up his shirt.

The fourteen-mile-long Ocracoke beach was generally less plagued by litter than most mainland beaches Sam had seen—there were lengthy stretches where on most any given day you would not find another human footprint much less a discarded Bud bottle—but there were always some don’t-give-a-damn sun worshipers finding their way out here. Back one day in July when a hard blue sky had been crowded with magnificent cumulus clouds with dazzling sunlight shafting down among them, turning their fringes into liquid light, dappling the sand and the sea with shadows, Sam and Valerie had been sitting side-by-side on a plaid blanket in one of the cool cloud shadows, loosely hugging their knees, watching rain veils drift along the horizon, and tasting the clean breeze, Joshua industriously excavating some imaginary dinosaur bones nearby.

A young couple with a baby had a sheet spread out thirty feet away. When the couple got up to go they left a loaded diaper, three empty Coors cans, several cigarette butts, and a crumpled yellow chip bag on the sand. She was carrying the baby, her purse, and a diaper bag. He had the big cooler and the wadded-up sheet.

Valerie brushed some sand from her dark sculpted calf, got up, and walked over to stand in front of the departing couple, halting them. “You see my friend over here?” she said in a friendly tone, pointing back at Sam. “He’s a captain in the Environmental Rangers. He’s off duty right now, but if you leave that mess back there on the beach he won’t have any choice. He’ll have to issue a citation and I think the fine can go up to three hundred dollars. Especially with the diaper. That would make it a Class Two offense.”

Sam sat on the blanket trying to think mean and nasty behind his sunglasses.

The young woman shifted the baby to her other arm and said, “He was gonna go back and get that in just a minute. Wasn’t you, Jack?” The young man went back and picked up all the trash and stuffed it inside the cooler. They left in a hurry, looking sullen. Damned law was everywhere these days.

Sam drove Joshua into the village. They ate heaped-up foot-long dogs washed down with vanilla milkshakes at a picnic table on the grass outside the Burger Box, Joshua then asking for a butterscotch sundae and sharing spoonfuls with Sam as the boy demolished it with efficiency. Sam took him home.

They played a game of Monopoly at the kitchen table, Joshua getting gleefully wealthy as Sam cheated carefully in the boy’s favor, and then Sam ushered him in for his shower, helping him towel off and climb into clean pajamas.

Joshua made popcorn in the countertop microwave, dragging his stool over so he could reach, and they settled in on the couch. Sam had rented
Heidi
mostly for the boy and
Rooster Cogburn
mostly for himself. He never tired of watching the interplay between the aging John Wayne and that most noble of ladies, Katharine Hepburn.

When Valerie came home she found them asleep on the couch in the darkened living room, one of those old shoot-’em-up tapes that Sam liked so much playing in the VCR. Sam had his boots off and his feet crossed on the coffee table, his head thrown back and his mouth open, snoring mildly. Joshua was curled in under Sam’s protective arm, his head pillowed on his small hands against Sam’s rib cage.

She leaned her shoulder on the door jamb, her arms folded, and just watched them for a while, the light from the TV playing over them.

My men,
she thought.