The Mysteries of Soldiers Grove (7 page)

The blizzard is massive; according to the truck radio it stretches across the whole upper Midwest from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, past Indiana into Ohio. It jolts his truck with terrific, head-on gusts, and his arms are numb from wrestling the wheel. Balaclava knows his way through hard weather, but he also knows his limitations. Something stupid is going to happen if he doesn’t soon stop pushing himself.

No cars or pickups are on the road now, only a few big rigs occasionally whoosh past him, locked in a differential gear, going the other way
,
west. If one of those guys falls asleep and starts drifting out of the night over into his lane he’ll end up tomato paste.

This stupid pickup that he’d cross-wired in Winona has only front-wheel drive. Hopefully he will be able to dump it for something better at his next stop—a truck that can really pull in this weather. What kind of an idiot was he becoming? He should have paid more attention to what he was stealing in Minnesota. Front-wheel drive! The heater doesn’t work well either, and a pickup without a load in its bed in this hard weather is so light it’s like a butterfly on ice.

But the blizzard is great cover—and Balaclava is very good at disappearing in hard weather, pulling the storm over his head like a blanket. Once he gets himself rolling he can become very hard to find. But sometimes when he makes mistakes or pushes himself too hard he digs his hole deeper.

He doesn’t want to end up stranded tonight like that jabbering geezer back there in Wisconsin who he pushed out into the storm, peeing his pants and trying to trudge through the drifts. Jesus, what an old cuckoo the guy was—and what a way to go! Balaclava snorts out a chuckle when he thinks about that old fart stumbling through the storm, probably babbling some lives to God, trying to give the Big Man some lessons on how to spare his miserable carcass from this whiteout. The world is full of old gizzards dealing out twaddle, but this one was seriously nuts.

The snow in his lane is only about three or four inches deep now, so Balaclava knows a snowplow has been through not too far ahead, but he’s got to stop soon. Now he is the one who has to take a very serious piss—and he is hungrier than a bitch owl in heat. Eventually he sees some lights coming up on the right side of the road through the driving snow. Whatever that goddamned place is, it will have to be the one. If it’s a motel or convenience store, he’ll break in and take whatever he needs. And he’s got to change vehicles soon.

He starts pumping his brakes and eases the truck onto an entry road, turning his lights out as he slows down, so as not to announce his arrival. But no one has plowed this small strip of road surface—the snow is deep, and the incline steeper and longer than he thought. There must be ice under the snow because the truck starts going sideways and he can’t stop it from slipping all the way around, still sliding, sideways again, raising his short hairs as he still spins, whirling all the way around again, two figure-eights, before it stalls in the drifts, the rear end slipping down into a ditch. The motor is ticking and there is nothing but headlong snow outside his windshield. Son of a bitch!

Breathing hard, he gathers his wits and tries the ignition again. The motor kicks back on, and for the first time he’s glad he has front-wheel drive because, by rocking the vehicle, he is able to inch the truck’s rear end up out of the ditch through the drifts, and ease it very slowly the rest of the way down the slope into the parking lot.

He’s shaky. He could have been chopped liver back there stuck in those drifts. He’s got to be more careful. Just the slightest mistake and he’d be out walking in the drifts like that old geezer. But he’s in luck again, he sees that the lights come from a little restaurant bar with a small attached motel. There’s a heavy Dodge pickup parked outside with a snowy load of firewood in its bed and a blade attached on the front.

He pulls into the back of the parking area, steps out urgently without slamming his door, immediately unzips his fly, takes out his cock and pisses a tremendous stream downwind. He studies the windows of the café as his bladder empties. Only one man seems to be in the place, probably the cook and owner, sitting at the counter, reading a newspaper. The guy hasn’t heard the truck come in above the noise of the storm.

Balaclava sizes him up. That is the stupid son of a bitch who did not plow out his entry road and almost hung him up for good. He glares across the lot through the window. That is a dipshit who deserves to bite it.

It all looks like easy pickings. This goddamned, fucking cook seems to be alone. Balaclava stands at a distance and studies the place some more before he unhooks his big fur hat at the chin and pushes the flaps up off his cheeks
.
He is still simmering about almost hanging himself up on the entry road. Everything is a hard chance for him these days, but pulling into a road-stop entryway should not be such a challenge.

He strides heavily through the snow to the restaurant and shoves the door open with a crash. Huge in his ugliness, startling and fierce in his snow-covered coat and strange furry hat, Balaclava rolls into the room like a jagged iceberg.

The cook jumps up, his newspaper flops to the floor and he backs up six feet from the counter. “Hey, wow, you almost knocked me out of my tree!” he blurts uneasily, backing up still another six feet. “I wasn’t expecting no one out in this howler.”

He gives Balaclava a wary quick study up and down. “Let me pour you some coffee, stranger,” he says. Nice and easy, he says this. He goes for the pot on his machine. While he is doing this, Balaclava sits down on a metal stool, leans forward onto the counter, slides his pant leg up over his boot top with his hand, and reaches into the long pouch along his ankle to bring out his considerable gun and place it on the counter in front of him.

When the guy comes back with a cup and the coffee pot, he is asking, “Cream and sugar?” But then he sees the weapon on the counter and stops. “My God! What
is
that? A bazooka?”

Balaklava responds slowly, “This is something that would blow out all your teeth and ram them back like bullets through your brain, my friend. It would also take out the lower part of your nose, both your cheeks, and your Adam’s apple. Your head might hang by a shred, but your own mother wouldn’t even recognize you. It’s loaded. Best do what I say, pal. I am really pissed! I almost killed myself sliding down your fucking entry road. Why didn’t you plow it out?”

“Jesus, I’m sorry, sorry. It’s such a hell of a night out there. I did clear it earlier, but I never expected anyone to be coming in here in this storm. It was lazy of me. I’m sorry!” He looks at the blunderbuss on his counter again. “Please take it easy.” He sets the empty cup in front of the weapon. His hand is shaking and he slops a bit of coffee onto the counter.

Balaclava heaves himself off the stool and snatches his gun away from the hot puddle. “Goddamn it! Watch it, you idiot!” He aims the weapon at the cook’s head. “Is there anybody else around this place? Are there guests in the motel?”

“No, sir, nobody else is here.” The cook is close to fainting, expecting death at any moment, clutching his arms around himself, backing off again, almost falling down backward.

Balaclava is disgusted. “Look, asshole. I need food. I need it right now. I don’t need you shitting your pants or spilling coffee all over the place.”

“I hear you talkin’!” the cook says, stepping backward some more.

“You got any weapons around here? Don’t fuckin’ lie to me! I know you do.”

“I got a little pistol under the tray in the cash drawer. That’s all I got, and I’m not going anywhere near it. You got the big gun, brother. You win. Whatever you want. I got three kids and my wife’s pregnant. I don’t have much money in the register, but you can have it all. If you want food, it’s on the house.”

“You better believe it is. I want a half dozen fried eggs, a triple order of hash-browns, ten strips of bacon, five slices of white toast, and you can bring the coffee pot over here and leave it while you’re cooking. Don’t press any buttons or go into your pocket for your cell phone. Don’t go into the back room. I’ll blow your fuckin’ head off, junior! Got that? Just cook on the grill. I’ll be watching.”

“I ain’t going to do nothing but what you say,” the cook says. “Comin’ right up just the way you like them. Best eggs and bacon you ever had. I’m just going to reach to this shelf up here and get my big skillet down. Okay? Then I’m going to get the eggs and bacon out of the fridge. You can watch me all the way. Just take it easy
.
”

After eating, Balaclava feels better. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was. The food was good and it seemed to soothe him. He decided not to blow the cook’s head off.

As he scarfs down the last of the eggs and potatoes, Balaclava thinks about taking a few winks in one of the beds in the motel. Maybe the storm would ease off a bit if he slept a few hours. But what the hell would he do with this simple-minded shit while he slept? Chain him to another bed? Somebody else might come in from the highway into the restaurant—if they could make it down the idiot’s driveway.

He could blow the cook away and then take a room, but somebody else might come in. The guy was cooperating, cooked decent eggs. In the end Balaclava just rips the phone out, cuts the long chord off, and makes the guy give over his cell phone.

“Now, your truck keys.”

“They’re in my coat pocket over there on the hook,” the cook points.

Balaclava levels his gun on the cook again. “You get ’em, friend. Don’t do anything funny when you reach in your pocket or they’ll be scraping your brains off the menu board.”

The man jingles his keys out of the coat pocket and puts them into Balaclava’s extended hand.

“Now, pal, you and me are going outside.” Balaclava buttons his heavy coat again and motions with his pistol for the cook to go out the door. At the curb there is a “Senior Citizens” parking sign on a metal post. He pushes the man down against it and cinches his legs and hands tight to the base of the post with the long phone cord. He considers gagging him, but figures he’ll just let the guy do his singing to the storm. It must be about zero degrees and the wind is up.

Balaclava goes back into the café. There is a big display box of beef jerky packages on the register counter and he stuffs two huge handfuls into his coat pockets, takes the money and small revolver from under the cash drawer. He finds a container of cleanser spray and covers everything he’s touched while he’s been in the restaurant and mops a bit with a bar towel. He locates a toolbox under the counter and takes a hammer. He finds the main switchboard just inside a closet door and throws off all the lights indoors and out. No one will even know this place is here in the dark for a few days until the storm moves out. He takes the big flashlight from under the counter.

As a last thought he removes the cook’s coat from the hook behind the counter and, on his way out, drops it over the guy’s shoulders. “That’s for the eggs and bacon,” he says. Already the cook, shivering in his sweater, is barely able to lift his head, but his eyes are wide and beseeching and his pupils focus on Balaclava. He tries to say something, but it doesn’t come out right. Children, wife—something.

Hell with him. He should have plowed his fucking entry road.

Balaclava tells him, “Maybe somebody else will come sliding down your road, shithead. At least I’m giving you that chance.”

There is half a tank of gas in the Dodge and it starts right up with the key. While the truck is warming he slips out of the cab again, goes to the rear and bangs on the license plate with the hammer until it crumples and folds up under the chrome bumper like someone had accidentally bumped it hard backing up against something. Then he gives it a few more licks to obscure the number a bit more.

Balaclava climbs back in, turns the truck around toward the exit, revs it a bit, pops the clutch and takes a hard run up the ramp. The truck has good muscle. The out ramp isn’t as steep as the entrance and the snow not quite so deep. In a moment he has plugged out onto the road and settled into the plowed highway lane as he heads east again with the driving storm.

C
HAPTER
4

Louise

I
have requested no roommate and pay extra for this privacy. I had the mover/helpers bring a few boxes of my carefully selected books from the farm, my tape player, a large plastic container of music cassettes, and my teapot.

My room is like an overgrown child’s room; it smells of long inhabitance, of diapers and age-old sweat. There is a small desk—maybe suitable for doing high school homework—a hard wooden chair, an alcove with a toaster, electric water heater, microwave oven, and some odd pieces of crockery on a shelf. Thank heaven there is a small section of bookshelves built into a wall, and in the divider between the kitchen and living area. The shelves are shallow, intended for knickknacks, but I lay my books in sideways and jam most of them in. The rest I line up between bookends on the dresser and a small table.

When they checked me into my room, a small television was already tuned to
General Hospital
for me. I switched it off. The little bathroom seems clean and there are many handles and grab bars around the shower and tub to hold onto. There is the bed, a long couch, a severe looking easy chair, and a rack by the door where I can keep my cane, umbrella, and walker, and hang my few hats.

My window looks out on a large parking lot, with a few small patches of trees clustered here and there on islands in the asphalt. I was introduced to some of my fellow residents as I was wheeled in. They seemed dear people in various stages of separation. The lobby and sitting room are already decorated for Christmas with a brightly bedecked tree, an illuminated Santa Claus who winks and blinks a red nose, a crèche with kneeling idolaters and a bouncing baby Jesus.