The Siege (12 page)

Winfield looked down at his lap, where he had shredded his napkin. He glanced nervously around the restaurant to see if anyone overheard their talk. Cloe was checking customers for coffee refills; Ruth was nowhere to be seen; Herbie was leaning out the back door of the kitchen, smoking and gazing off into the distance.

“I know how she feels,” Winfield said softly.

“Do you?” Dale said, pressing. “Did you ever lose someone that close? Did you ever have a child of yours, or your wife die in an accident like that?” He earnestly hoped Winfield hadn’t; his purpose wasn’t to scratch open old wounds. It was obvious Winfield was still shaken up from what he had seen that night.

Winfield shook his head. “No, I haven’t. I meant I know how she feels ’cause I saw her fall apart when I told her the news. ’N I happen to know from talk around town that her doctor prescribed some pretty hefty tranquilizers.”

“So I’m not telling you or Mr. Rodgers or anyone in this town how to do their respective jobs,” Dale said. “All I want you to do is one favor, not for me but for Mildred Cole. I want you to ask Rodgers if he’ll let me see Larry’s body.”

Winfield’s head snapped up, and he nailed Dale with a harsh look. “Why you?” he asked. He laughed softly as he shook his head. “After all this bullshit, I was pretty much expecting you to ask if Mildred Cole could see him.”

Dale stroked the side of his face. “You know, if he really is as bad as you say he was, maybe it wouldn’t be a good idea for her to see him. Rodgers is probably right. Let her keep the memories she has. But if I saw him, I could reassure her and comfort her. It would be the voice of someone who had been close to her son, telling her that her son was at peace.”

Winfield picked up his coffee and contemplated it for several seconds before drinking. He wrinkled his nose and, putting the cup back on the saucer, hailed Cloe. “Cloe! I could use a warm-up.”

Cloe immediately started toward him.

“So?” Dale said, leaning both elbows on the counter.

Winfield smiled and nodded as Cloe filled his cup. He took his time adding cream and sugar, and stirred thoughtfully. The spoon clattered loudly when he placed it on the countertop, where it left a little brown ring.

“I
just
want to know why in hell you’re so all fired-up about all this,” he said. He leaned back slightly, puffing out his chest as he hitched his gun belt. “You want to see his body, and I want to know why you think I should help you do something like that.”

Dale came up close to him, meeting his eyes on the level. “Larry Cole was a damned close friend of mine,” he said, his voice a harsh whisper, “and since you scraped him up off the road, no one, not even his mother, has seen him. I think that’s pretty damned peculiar! That’s why!”

Winfield thought for several seconds, seconds that seemed to drag out into minutes for Dale. At last, he took a huge gulp of his coffee, wiped his face with his shredded napkin, and hefted himself off the stool.

“Okay, Mr. Harmon,” he said, as he fished a five dollar bill from his wallet and left it on the counter beside his plate. “I’ll give Rodgers a call later on today and just sorta broach the subject with him. You give me a call this afternoon, ’n I’ll tell you what I find out. Will that satisfy you?”

Dale knew he had pressed the man far enough, so he smiled and held out his hand. They shook, and Dale smiled, “Thank you very much,” he said.

Winfield started for the door, but before swinging it open and leaving, he looked back at Dale. “Just give me a call ’round one o’clock. We’ll see what’s what. I ain’t promisin’ anything.”

II

T
he day was turning into shit, as far as Hocker was concerned, but last night had been pure glory!

After “borrowing” the old man’s truck, he and Tasha bypassed Bangor and I-95, taking Route 2 north through Old Town and Lincoln. They didn’t dare stop until they had some healthy distance between them and the town of Holden. By the time they stopped for “breakfast” in Mattawamkeag, it was well past noon.

The “old man,” they had discovered, was in the bad habit of keeping his wallet on the seat beside him as he drove. Perhaps, Hocker thought, the truck seat drove the bulging wallet into his skinny, little ass, making driving uncomfortable. In any event, Hocker was surprised to find a fat wad of bills in the wallet, along with assorted credit cards, a driver’s license, and ragged-edged family pictures.

“Righteous bucks,” Hocker said, whistling between his teeth as he held the steering wheel with one hand and hastily counted the bills with the other. “We got close to a hundred bucks here.”

“Whoopee,” Tasha said. She was unimpressed by the money or at least that was the impression she tried to give him. Throughout the drive to Mattawainkeag, she was silent, either staring out at the road ahead or else, eyes closed, leaning her head against the side window. Every bump in the road made her head bounce against the glass, but at least she didn’t have to look at or talk to Hocker!

What she really felt was a cold, stark fear that Hocker really had killed that man back there! It was fear that, even now, an All Points Bulletin was out for their arrest! It was fear that she might have made the biggest mistake of her life when she ran away from home and hooked up with this asshole Hocker!

Somewhere along Route 2, after Mattawamkeag, Hocker spotted a deep-rutted logging road and, without even slowing, jerked the wheel hard to the left. The truck’s chassis groaned and snapped as it rattled over the washboard road bed. A yellow wall of dust fantailed behind them.

“Christ! Slow down before I lose all my fillings, will you?” Tasha yelled. Her voice was almost lost beneath the rattling sound coming from underneath the truck.

Hocker leaned his head back and laughed aloud, but a sudden, hard bounce threw him right out of his seat so that he hit his head on the truck roof. That suddenly sobered him up, and he eased up a bit on the gas pedal.

“What the hell are you doing, anyway?” she asked. She looked back longingly at the asphalt road through the rear window. It may not be much, but at least it connected towns. This road was going nowhere!

Hocker’s jaw was set grimly as he negotiated the bumpy dirt road around several turns, but before long he drew to a stop and killed the engine. “I guess this’ll about do,” he said. “Come on, everybody out. We’ll set up camp for the night here.”

Tasha scowled as she stepped out of the truck and looked around. Dust swirled in the air and settled slowly. Other than the curving dirt-logging road behind them, there was no sign of human life anywhere. Towering pine trees speared up into the sky, swaying with a soft hiss in the gentle wind. Birds called from surrounding woods, and looking up, she could see what appeared to be a hawk wheeling overhead, riding the thermals. The brightness of the sky made her eyes begin to water, so she turned away.

“Look,” she said, her anger continuing to bubble, “it’s one thing to hitchhike and camp somewhere along the road. But I never said I was Pioneer Annie! I don’t want to sleep out here in the goddamned wilderness!

“Sssh!” Hocker said, holding his finger to his lips and glancing around. “You hear that?”

Tasha shook her head angrily. “All I hear is the friggin’ wind!”

“No! Listen!” Hocker said. He suddenly bolted forward, running into the brush, leaping over moss-covered deadfalls and waving for her to follow him. “Come on!” he shouted, his voice echoing and growing fainter.

Tasha stood for a moment beside the truck, watching him go. Soon, all she could see was his head, bouncing up and down further into the brush. Everywhere, the woods vibrated with intense shadows and light. After another moment, she swore softly under her breath and started after him. It was better than standing there alone.

Hocker was out of sight by then, so she called out to him as she ran in the same direction he had taken. She was filled with a sudden fear that a bear or moose or something worse would charge out of the woods at her, but on she went, hoping to find Hocker before the wild animals found her, for all the good Hocker would be!

As she went, though, what she had thought was the sound of the wind in the trees grew steadily louder until she broke through the brush and jerked to a stop, astounded. She stood in a clearing on a cliff, maybe twenty or thirty feet high, looking straight down into a rolling, foam-twisted river.

Hocker was some distance upstream, staring out over the twisting ribbon of water as it wound its way south. Rocks glistened in the bright sunlight and white-capped water splashed into the air as it rushed downstream. Fallen trees, stripped of their bark, littered the riverbed, looking like giant toothpicks scattered everywhere.

“A river. Big deal!” Tasha said. She shouted over the roar of the water. “You never saw a river before?”

Hocker glanced at her and shook his head as though he heard some very sad news.

“We’ve been driving north along a river. What did you call it? Penob… whatever! Who the hell cares?” She waved her hand at him in disgust. “Come on. Let’s get out of here. Look,” she said, brightening. “The road comes through over there. At least we won’t have to bushwack our way back to the truck.”

Not entirely confident of her sense of direction, she turned and started along the dirt road, hoping it would lead her back to the truck. If she was lucky, she thought, Hocker left the keys in the ignition. She could take the truck and drive the hell out of here alone. If she got stopped by the cops before she got to wherever the hell she wanted to get, she’d tell the truth about how she had hooked up with Hocker and how she had had nothing to do with hurting that old man! She could make up some story about how she had to steal the truck to get away from Hocker.

As it turned out, Hocker had taken the truck keys with him, so she ended up waiting nearly an hour before he came back, walking along the dirt road, whistling a merry little tune to himself even though his face was bathed in sweat. Pioneer Annie or not, they ended up camping in a small clearing next to the logging road. After another supper from a can, it took Tasha several hours to fall asleep, and even then, the sleep was thin and practically useless. She lay there with her sleeping bag pulled up to her chin, expecting at any moment to hear a loud roar as a snarling, clawing bear, or worse, tore through the tent and ripped her to shreds!

But the roaring sound that did wake her up, sometime after two o’clock in the morning, was the sound of the Ford pickup starting up.

Tasha jerked up out of her sleep, thinking crazily,
Oh, Christ! The bears found the truck keys!
A “Far Side” cartoon popped into her mind and almost made her laugh…. Almost.

In a flurry of arms and legs, she kicked free of her sleeping bag, ran up the tent zipper, and stared out at the logging road. Overhead, the stars were so thick the sky looked like one huge luminous gray wash. That only accented the heavy, black shadows of the forest. She thought she could discern the silhouette of the truck against the sky, but she wasn’t sure.

“Hocker?” she called out. She reached out in the darkness to pat his sleeping bag, but she felt only slight relief when she found it empty.

Good
, she thought.
That’s him out there. Not someone else!

But what in the name of God was he doing? she wondered. She wanted to call out louder, but then she thought he had decided to leave her. That didn’t make sense because if he wanted to dump her, he seemed like the kind of guy who simply would “off” her.

So, if he’s not leaving without m
e, she thought,
what the hell is he doing?

The truck’s ignition ground over and over, came close to starting but then died several times. In the silences between his attempts, she heard the long string of curses Hocker laid on the old Ford.

Tasha eased out of the tent into the chilly night air, watching the misty plumes of her breath as she breathed shallowly. Her legs and back ached as she stretched upright and started to move cautiously forward.

As she got closer, the grinding ignition and the cursing got louder. Hidden behind a thick-boled tree, she heard the truck catch and turnover, chugging unevenly.

“All-fuckin’-right!” Hocker shouted.

Tasha could see him clearly, sitting at the wheel, an inky silhouette against the gray night sky. He snapped on the headlights, flooding the forest with light so bright it hurt Tasha’s eyes. She was convinced she saw other eyes, shining from the bushes around her. But she ignored that fear as she waited, wondering what Hocker would do next.

The truck ground into gear and haltingly moved forward, the suspension groaning over the rutted road, and the tires spinning out particularly deep ruts. Once she was sure Hocker couldn’t see her, Tasha left her hiding place and, picking her way carefully, followed along behind.

At least he’s not heading out to the road
, she thought.
He’s not leaving me behind
. There was small comfort in that thought. It was as bad as being alone in the woods at night.

Hocker drove along the road until he came to the point where the road came closest to the river’s edge. Tasha crouched behind some bushes and watched Hocker get out of the truck.

Leaving the engine running, he went to the truck bed and fished around. The old man who owned the truck may have been foolish about where he left his wallet, but he was no dummy when it came to preparing for emergencies. Hocker shook the ten-gallon gas can, apparently satisfied by the feel; it was practically full.