Off the Grid (6 page)

9

C
laude Gerlock looked like Texas, or at least the idea of Texas that Hollywood had created. Tall, broad-shouldered, and long-muscled, with a rocking gait and a permanent squint. In his youth, nearsighted women had told him he reminded them of Gary Cooper, which was dumb and no way true because the man was just too damn pretty. As he aged, people started comparing him to Robert Duvall in that
Lonesome Dove
movie, which wasn’t half bad, except that the actor was almost a foot shorter than Claude and in no way a Texan just because he played one on TV.

Texas wasn’t just a look and an easy way of talking; it was a mind-set, and Claude Gerlock was as true a Texan as God had ever created, from the oil wells to the cattle herds to the home arsenal he kept, which served to keep his five-thousand-acre ranch clear of varmints of all species, including the Homo sapien type, if any ill-intended chanced to trespass. He’d been through the hell of war, been gored almost to death on a wild boar hunt, and had even once survived a month alone in the Odessa desert on rattlesnake blood and cactus paddles, just to see if he could do it.

But it always took a while to accustom himself to this claustrophobic, conifer-studded terrain—there were too many pine trees up here and the whole place reeked like a car air freshener. And you couldn’t see a thing through all the goddamned foliage and tree trunks, which brought him right back to a Vietnamese jungle. He didn’t think of those jungles much anymore, which was a mercy, but the memories were like an old splinter that hadn’t ever completely worked itself out of the skin.

He paused at the base of a big spruce in a small clearing, braced the butt of his rifle against his shoulder, and squinted down the scope at the man who’d been stalking him for some time. “I hear you, Chief,” he said with a smile. “And I got you in my sights.”

“Bullshit you heard me, you deaf old shit kicker,” a distant voice filtered through the pines.

“I did, louder than the bells of St. Mary’s on Easter morning, half a click back. What’s all this about Indians being silent and stealthy?”

“I left my moccasins in the teepee, Chimookman.”

A minute later, Chief Bellanger stepped into the clearing, his heavy-soled boots crunching on the dried pine needles. He smiled, his sun-cured brown face creasing like a geisha’s fan. “You see anything worth shooting yet, Chimook?”

“Just you.”

“Likewise.” Chief braced his own rifle against a tree trunk and moved in to give Claude a grizzly bear embrace.

The hugs were a recent thing—probably an old man thing—and neither one of them were very good at it. Warriors didn’t run around hugging each other all the time, and at their core, both men were still warriors even though those days were far behind them.

“You got the place ready?” Claude asked.

“Don’t I always?”

“Reckon you do.”

“Got the last of our supplies in my truck back at the lodge. Some Indian fry bread, along with some of that fancy foreign jet fuel you like to drink.”

Claude smiled. “Then your truck is where I want to be. Fuck the bread. Just throw me in the back with the booze.”

The two men walked single file down the narrow deer trail that led back to the lodge, and for the entire walk, neither spoke. Not because they didn’t have anything to say, but because this was how their relationship had begun, and the habits that kept you alive in war lasted a lifetime.

If there was one thing Claude remembered about the majority of missions in ’Nam, it was the silence. A line of men moving through the jungle on paths as narrow as this one, rattling belts held still by sweating hands, forearms straining to hold M-16s steady and quiet. He and the Chief still watched the ground beneath each boot step, looking for trip wires that had never existed in the northern forests of Minnesota.

It didn’t take Claude long to slide into the good feelings that came right along with putting his boots on this land. If there was a place on earth he loved as much as Texas, it was right here on Elbow Lake Reservation. He loved the Ojibwe people, their native legends and lore, the spirit stories, the pranks, and the good-natured prejudice of a people who believed absolutely that every single other culture on the planet was inferior to theirs, because that was a damn fine survival skill. This from a tribe who had once lived in broken-down trailers without a pot to piss in and ate government cheese rations.

When Chief first brought him up here after the war, about two dozen men sat him down at a fire that smelled like burning cow dung, sliced the inside of his forearm with a dull knife, and told him it was a ceremony honoring him because he’d saved the life of one of their own.

“Am I a blood brother now?” he’d asked, because he’d read about that in a comic book.

All the Indians had rolled over laughing. “Hell, no, that’s just what you white folks think we do. You’re just a dumb Texan who sat there and let us cut your arm open.”

Then they gave him horrible whiskey in a Mason jar, dubbing him some Indian name he couldn’t pronounce. It was years before he learned that the name translated roughly to Cowboy Who Fucks Dogs, and by that time he was way past taking offense.

He’d been here every year since to hunt with Chief, watching the transformation of the reservation, tickled by it, becoming a part of their history he knew would be passed down through the generations. Gave him a prickly sense of belonging somewhere he didn’t belong at a time when the rest of the country looked at him askance and made him hide his dress uniform in the very back of his very large closet as if it were some kind of leper’s sore.

After a time the trees started to thin and Claude saw the resin-ambered logs of the lodge, the gravel parking area, and his rental SUV hitched to a trailer that held ten shiny, new canoes with
ELBOW LAKE YOUTH CAMP
stenciled on them.

Chief stopped when he saw the canoes and his face went still. Damn fool always had to act stoic when something really touched him, as if emotions were the enemy. “What the hell is this, old man?”

“I was up here last year when you opened that camp. Sorriest damn sight, seeing all those poor little Indian kids trying to figure out how to paddle in that beat-up piece of junk that makes up your entire fleet. Indians should know their way around a canoe.”

“City Indians,” the Chief explained. “That’s mostly what we get up here for camp. A lot of ’em don’t know a canoe from a giraffe.”

“Well, now you can teach ’em all how to paddle proper.”

After a long silence, Chief nodded. “
Migwich
,
my brother. Thank you.”

Claude redirected his attention and let his gaze drift into the rich green blur of pine that surrounded the lodge. “Car’s coming.”

“Gotta be our boy.”

They waited and watched, and finally a car crunched up on the gravel and parked beside Claude’s rental SUV and his gift of canoes.

“Holy shit,” Claude breathed when a skeleton emerged from the car. Joe was over thirty years their junior, but he looked like an old man. The disease had done some ugly work. “Man, he looks bad.”

“Real bad.”

“I heard that,” Joe Hardy called out as he walked toward them. He was moving real slow, and Chief felt himself wincing as he watched every labored step. “Goddamned Indians and Texans, you’ve both got the manners of a hog at a trough. Now say something nice.”

Chief snorted a laugh. “GI Joe, you dumb fuck, get your ass out of the open before the vultures see you and pick what’s left of you clean!”

“That’s better.” Joe grinned as Chief walked to meet him halfway, grabbed his bony shoulders, and probed for meat. “Son of a bitch, kid, they sucked the flesh right off you. Told you, white man’s cures are worse than the disease. What you need is a little Indian medicine.”

“And what’s that?”

“Liquor and food, in that order.”

“Sounds good.” Joe looked over at where Claude was standing, holding back. This would be harder for him. The three men had met when Joe brought Claude’s only son, Grover, home from Afghanistan in a coffin. Their bond had formed over their mutual loss—for Claude, a son; for Joe, the best friend he’d ever had and tried so hard to save during that mountain ambush. He still carried metal fragments in his shoulder from the shells he’d taken carrying Grover out of the line of fire and over to the chopper. “Get over here, you big pussy Texan. I won’t bite.”

Claude didn’t have the stoic thing going. He should have, as a big bad Texan, but Joe canceled that out like a bad check. Always had. He walked over slowly, almost afraid to get there, and this time the hug felt right and real around the deflated bag of skin and bones that barely resembled the man he remembered from just a few months ago and loved like a son. “Think you can still heft a gun with those puny little arms?”

“You bet your scrawny ass I can still hold a gun. I’ve been practicing.”

Part of Joe wanted to tell them what he’d done, about the dark little house and the two lifeless bodies bleeding on the floor. The temptation was strong, almost irresistible. Some twisted need for a legacy, he supposed. But he couldn’t do that. They wouldn’t understand.

“You know your problem, Joe?” Claude was trying to fight the dark moment and his own emotions, just like the Chief always did. “You fought in the wrong war. If you’d had to go through what we went through in the ’Nam, you’d be a little tougher. Probably could kick this little illness you got right to the curb.”

Joe grinned. “Wrong war, my nowhere ass. You two slapped mosquitoes. Big deal. You should try living through a sandstorm when it’s a hundred and twenty degrees. A day of that and you’re crapping windowpanes the next morning.” He chuckled a little, then went serious. “I still think of Grover, Claude. Every day.”

Claude nodded and slapped him on the shoulder. There would be a large bruise there later. “So do I, son.”

Joe looked down at the gravel beneath his feet, remembering what death felt like in that medevac helicopter over the mountains of Kandahar. He’d been holding Grover’s hand, never noticing the blood pouring out of his shoulder, never noticing the medics who were frantically tending to them both.

You’re gonna be okay, G-Man. Hang on, we’re almost there.

Where?

Back to base. We’ll shoot some pool after they put a couple Band-Aids on us, okay?

Where are we now, Joey?

Coming down out of the mountains. Just a few more minutes.

Grover had smiled then.
Closer to God,
he’d murmured, and then Joe felt Grover shudder, felt his hand seize up, as if a valve had been switched off and all the juice that made a person a person had suddenly evaporated into thin air. Joe had known in an instant.

He finally looked up and lifted his nose to the air, drinking in the piney scent he’d come to love these past few years, after Claude and the Chief had brought him into their fold. “So are we shooting today or what?”

10

H
arley Davidson’s historic Summit Avenue mansion had been home to the Monkeewrench offices ever since they’d shuttered their Minneapolis loft space almost two years ago. There had been a lot of blood on their last day there, the dead bodies had been real, and none of them wanted to go back ever again.

The mansion was an old, imposing structure, crafted from local red stone, encircled by a wickedly spiked wrought-iron fence. Even at the peak of summer, when the perennial flower gardens exploded into full color and the fountains burbled cheerfully, it still seemed menacing.

But now, as Halloween approached, the menace of the place had entered an entirely new dimension, thanks to some overzealous decorating. The antique French gargoyles Harley had recently installed hadn’t helped matters, but the overblown Halloween decorations he was putting the finishing touches on now sent it straight over the top.

In the front yard, there was a vintage Shelby Mustang convertible with two life-sized skeletons dressed as bride and groom, along with a makeshift cemetery with real granite headstones engraved with movie monsters’ names. The tableau was augmented by a choreographed light show of ghouls on remote-controlled zip lines, outdoor audio playing sound effects, and several fog machines strategically placed around the property.

“What do you guys think?” Harley called down to Annie and Roadrunner, his massive body teetering on a ladder as his black ponytail whipped in a freshening breeze. He draped the last of the cobwebs over the portico. “More?”

“Enough!” Annie snapped, steadying the ladder. “Now, get down off that thing before you fall and kill yourself. And by the way, who gets real granite tombstones for their front yard?”

Harley chuckled and clambered down, his jackboots about five sizes too big to manage the ladder rungs with any kind of grace. “I do. And stop complaining. You love this, Annie, you know you do.”

“I love this? Are you kidding me? I’ve got some really expensive white stiletto heels sinking down into your grass right now, trying to save your sorry and big behind. Roadrunner, give me a hand.”

Roadrunner had been squatting like a praying mantis over one of the troublesome fog machines, but he quickly unfurled his six-foot-seven frame and helped steady the ladder. “Sorry, Annie.”

“Don’t be sorry. Just help me get this idiot down alive.”

Once Harley had landed safely, he folded his arms across his broad chest, the leather of his biker jacket creaking like a haunted house door. He looked around his elaborately dressed grounds, which were now wreathed in fog thanks to Roadrunner, then gave a satisfied nod. “Brilliant, if I do say so myself. Great test run, everybody.”

Annie rolled her eyes. “No trick-or-treater in their right mind is going to knock on your door, Harley. Besides, you don’t even like kids.”

“I do too like kids. But sometimes I think I intimidate them. I thought this might win them over.”

Annie grunted. “Perfect reasoning. Kids afraid of you? Turn your front yard into a terror trip.”

“Kids love this shit, the scarier the better.” He stroked his full black beard thoughtfully as he eyed the spikes on the top of the fence. “As a matter of fact, I think we should get some skulls and jam them up there, give the place a more Vlad the Impaler feel.”

Roadrunner nodded. “Not a bad idea. I know where you can buy some good fake skulls.”

Annie pulled her heels out of the grass and marched to the front door. “You two frat boys stay out here as long as you want. I’m going back to work.”

Hours later, every light was still on in the third-floor loft, and the three of them were hunched over their computers, working in focused silence.

Annie was having the most fun she’d had since Grace MacBride took off to sail the Caribbean with John Smith. Annie liked John—all of them did—but let’s face it. The man had flaws. First of all, he was old; more than twenty years older than Grace and strung tighter than a grand piano treble wire. Worse yet, he was cookie-cutter FBI, even if he was retired. What Grace saw in him was a puzzle. Still, Annie never questioned the choices of the people she loved, and Grace was the best of these. But Annie did miss her.

Last week, life had taken an unexpected upturn when Monkeewrench had landed a juicy contract for their new game to teach children American history through a 3-D CGI program with voice recognition that allowed students to literally walk into a scene and interact with historical avatars. Right now they were working on the node where users would be able to stand on the bank of the Potomac River during George Washington’s crossing. It was a big step up from the kids’ games they’d started with years ago, but it was nevertheless a return to the education-through-games programs that had made them all wealthy. Besides, Annie loved American history. It had been her minor in college before they’d all dropped out to save Grace from a serial killer.

“Okay.” A tired growl came from across the loft. “So George Washington asks the kid a question, like what river is this or what’s the date, and the kid gets it wrong. What’s the penalty? I say shoot the kid’s avatar in the head with a musket ball.”

“Don’t be a dipshit, Harley,” Roadrunner mumbled. “You take away points.”

“You’re such a buzzkill, Roadrunner. And at the moment, George Washington is bare-ass naked. I need details so I can start rendering the graphics, Annie.”

She looked over at where Harley was punching thick fingers into his keyboard. With all the computers they were running, it was hot in the loft despite all the cooling units they were running to keep the electronics from melting down, so he’d shed his leather jacket and sat there in a muscle T-shirt that showed every stupid tattoo he’d ever gotten. “I sent you the pictorial,” she said. “White tights, yellow knickers, blue jacket.”

“Nice.” Harley looked over at Roadrunner, who was hunched over his own computer, his long spine bent like an archer’s bow to accommodate a desk far too low for his frame. He was in his customary Lycra biking suit, and today’s selection just happened to be yellow and blue with white stripes. “Huh. Just like Roadrunner. How do you think old Georgie would look in Lycra?”

Roadrunner looked over at Harley. “What?”

Harley gave him a smug smile. “Nothing.”

Annie put her chin in her hand and thought about that outfit, wondering what one would look like on her, at least as a Halloween costume. Not nearly as divine as the all-white ensemble she was wearing today, she decided. White was a color she rarely chose to wear, and certainly not after Labor Day, but part of the fun was defying convention, not adhering to it. Besides, she’d scored a pair of white fur high-heeled boots that climbed all the way to her plump knees like some kind of fabulous tundra animal coiling up her legs.

Annie snapped herself out of her fashion reverie and returned her attention to her computer, where she had been puzzling over a particularly complex section of programming before Harley had interrupted her. Normally, it wouldn’t have taken her long to work her way through it, but it was late, and she suddenly felt the dull ache of almost a week’s worth of exhausting fifteen-hour workdays creeping into her bones. “This Southern belle is going to start making some bad decisions if I don’t get home and sleep for a few hours in my own bed. Are you boys going to work all night?”

Harley leaned back in his chair, stretched, and yawned. “If you’re bailing, I’m bailing. Roadrunner, are you the last man standing?”

Roadrunner spun in his chair and shook his head. “I could use a couple hours myself. I’ll catch a few on the sofa in a little bit. I’ll get you a cab, Annie.”

She gave Roadrunner a gentle pat on his bony shoulder as she took the elevator downstairs to wait for her taxi, which was miraculously already idling in front of Harley’s gate. She’d never gotten a cab that fast in her life. The driver got out promptly and opened the back door, which pleased her. They weren’t all so polite. “Good evening,” he said cordially in a thickly accented voice. “It is a cold night, is it not, miss?”

“It most certainly is,” she said, settling into the backseat.

“I am not accustomed to this cold,” he chuckled. “I miss the sun and warmth all year.”

Annie met his eyes in the rearview mirror. Like most of the cabdrivers in the city, he was obviously a transplant from someplace where it didn’t snow seven months out of the year. “Where are you from originally?” she asked.

“Somalia, miss.”