The Unit (14 page)

Matter-of-fact tone. I turn. I get a look down the muzzle of a Ruger .44. The light of day goes slow. Looking up into squinty eyes the color of wastewater. Knowing it’s no good, but moving my hand to the small of my back. Getting my fingers up underneath my coat and onto the grips of the Beretta. His gap-toothed smile.

“No need for that.” The muzzle stays in my face. “Unless you’re overly eager to leave this world.”

“Okay, then. What next?”

“Well, it might be that I want something.”

“Hope you take credit cards.”

He cackles at that.

“Got any smokes on you?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.”

I move my hands slowly to my coat pocket and pull out the pack of Marlboros I took from the dead kid.

“Good news, good news. Guess I won’t hafta quit after all.” His cackle again. “Let’s say we take ourselves off high alert, huh?”

“Okay.”

He lowers the .44 and decocks it and slides it into the worn gunfighter rig on his hip. For a while it feels fine just to stand and breathe in and out in the presence of a stranger. He takes the smokes and pulls one out and lights up. I pick up the section of pipe I cut. He watches me, but the revolver stays in its holster.

“This your shop?”

“Yep.” He points at a hand-painted wooden sign that hangs above a workbench.
Bill and Sons
. “I’m Bill Senior.”

“Bet you’re a good fabricator.”

He looks at my hands.

“Best one standing here.”

I know he can’t be trusted. In this new reality, there are only two groups of people: good people who can’t be trusted, and bad ones who need to be avoided or shot. The good ones don’t hesitate to offer their hospitality, but this guy hasn’t offered me anything. He might later, but it’s too late. I’ve already put him in the
bad
category, and there’s not much he can do to change my mind.

He’s one of the bad ones, but I don’t think he’ll shoot me for no reason at all. I go back to working on my project and he figures out what I’m doing and he joins in. We cut disks of aluminum plate that fit into the small cylinder I’d cut. The old man gathers up the disks and he brazes the first disk into the tube, to form a compartment. I epoxy a strip of high-temp muffler wrap into the inside circumference. We make four lined compartments, then he welds thicker caps on both ends and locks the gadget in a vise and uses a battery-powered drill to bore a small hole straight through the sandwiched assembly. I ask him why he’s here.

“Couldn’t see any reason to move on,” he says.

“Are there any others here?”

“You’ve already met them, I think.”

I can’t trust him. I won’t. I haven’t had a conversation with a non-hostile man since we fled Yreka, and the careful chitchat is making me grind my teeth. No time for it. I’ll need to get started soon.

“Are you alone here?” I ask.

“Well, I got my girls.” He looks up at the nudie calendar. “And before you decided to trespass on my property I was about to make the acquaintance of a certain black dog. Keep him or shoot him, I don’t know which I would’ve done. But I sure wouldn’t mind having a good dog around here.”

“Sorry we scared him off.”

“Well, he was probably a flesh-eater anyhow.” He spits. “Could be you saved me from having to put him down.”

“Are you okay, otherwise?”

“I’m fine. Saw it coming. Laid in a good stock of supplies, too, except for the cigarettes. Had a full case of Marlboros on order, but it didn’t get here in time. But I have food and booze, both.”

He gives me a look from his watery eyes.

“When we’re done, I wonder if you’d have supper with me? I figure it would be healthy for me to socialize more.”

I don’t trust him and he doesn’t trust me. I like the idea of dining with a stranger, but no.

“Maybe later.”

The quaver in my voice gives me away.

“You got a pressing engagement?”

“Yes.”

“It’s the boys, isn’t it?”

I pick up the .22 and unload it. I unscrew and remove the front sight while he rummages through a drawer filled with oiled taps and dies. We cut good, sharp threads into the outside diameter of the muzzle of the rifle and then we cut matching threads inside the mounting flange of the device. We attach it and I test the balance. There’s a slight muzzle-heaviness, but it’s not bad. I sight through the scope and the suppressor doesn’t cut into my field of view. I load the rifle and lean it against the workbench and leave it alone to let the epoxy set up. The old man goes out and I put my hand on the Beretta’s grips and watch to see what he’s up to. He comes back with a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black. He fills two shot glasses that are marked “U.S. Navy.” He offers one of them to me, but I don’t take it. He shrugs his shoulders and takes both shots. He lights up another cigarette.

“Sure glad I didn’t have to shoot that dog today.”

“Me, too.” I don’t mention that a gunshot almost certainly would’ve caused the boys to run straight at us.

“Yep. Here’s to not having to shoot.”

He watches me to see how I respond.

“I can’t drink to that, just yet,” I say.

“No?”

“Tonight of all nights, I can’t.”

“You should ask me if I’ll help.”

“I know you won’t.”

“Maybe you’re right.” He walks closer. “Tell me about that young kid, Bill. Is he healthy?” he says.

“Seems to be.”

“Is he still wearing his cowboy rig?”

I nod.

“Well, I rue the day I bought it for him, just so you know.”

“They took my daughter. Will you help me get her back?”

“Sorry, no. But thanks for asking.”

He pours himself another shot and lifts it to his squirming, old-man lips. While his head is tilted back, I reach in and grab his revolver from its holster. I pull back the hammer and point the gun at his chest. He coughs whiskey breath into my face and then backs away.

“You going to be a problem?” I ask.

“Nope. You?”

“Peace is the answer, right?”

“Damn straight.”

I point the gun in a safe direction and lower the hammer.

“Okay then. Tell me about those boys.”

“You’ve seen ’em. Words alone can’t tell you more than their actions already have.”

“How many are there?”

“Less than twenty now. There used to be more, but they’re in a dangerous line of work.”

“I want to know about you, too. Why aren’t you over there with them?”

“Because I’m not suicidal, is why.”

“Okay. I can buy that. But maybe you spot for them in that Cessna? Maybe you help them and they let you live, but you have to know they won’t let you camp out here forever before they decide to charge you rent.”

“Oh, I’ll be fine.”

“How?”

“The Lord will provide.”

“There’s not a lot of that going around these days. You’ve got an angle. What is it?”

I point the revolver at his left knee.

“Maybe I have an angle, maybe I don’t. Maybe I’m just a crazy old man. But I’ll not tell you a damn thing more. No sir.”

He smiles and I swing the gun fast and the barrel catches him across the temple. But he doesn’t fall like people do in the movies. He just says, “Ow,” so I hit him harder and he goes to his knees. My next swat gets him to go down and I drag him to the lone office chair and use a roll of duct tape to strap him down.

Bastard blindsided me. Didn’t see it coming. And he’s going after the boys, for sure. I could’ve shot him right off, but I’m glad I didn’t. No, maybe it’s for the best that I didn’t. I think I’ll let this play out, see what happens. He’ll go after his daughter. He’s got no choice. Then maybe this dude will set me free, somewhere down the line, if he’s still breathing after paying his house call on those boys.

Yeah. The more I think about it, the more right it seems. One way or the other, I’ll be fine. Serves the little shits right, too. Bill Junior doesn’t know when to stop. He won’t stop until someone gives him a dirt nap, and nobody knows the size of the body count he’ll rack up before that day.

I can’t say I haven’t thought about taking him out myself. Call it “for the good of humanity.” I’m not much of a father, but I’m the one who knocked his mother up, God rest her soul, and I can’t bring myself to put a stop to what the good Lord allowed to survive. But it looks like he fucked with the wrong daddy this time. Yeah, this dude seems to be just the one to teach him the lesson he’s been begging for. And even if this daddy gets himself killed, the boys will find me here, gift-wrapped in my chair, and I’ll be fine.

Anyhow, the boys would’ve been out here after this family soon enough. These people are eyewitnesses to God knows what, and sooner or later the cops and soldiers will be here, and there’ll be hell to pay for the ones that didn’t cover their tracks. No, the boys
have
to get this man, one way or another, and it suits me just fine that he’ll be taking the fight to them, instead of holing up here and getting my place all shot to hell.

So let whatever happens happen. I wash my hands of Billy and the others, and it’s high time I did it. Those boys are pure evil. Their time in the juvie hall only gave them ideas and got ’em more fired up. Lord knows how many people they’ve killed of late. And it looks like this good man and his family are next, God help them. I wouldn’t bet money on this dude winning, but I can wish him well, can’t I? Truth be told, I hope he takes a crapload of the little bastards with him.

Oh well. Life’s a bitch, et cetera, et cetera. Mother Nature has a way of finding her balance again after we crap in her shoes. There’ll be fewer people around here soon enough, and the fewer hostile people in the world, the better, is what I always say. Just give me my freedom back, some good weather, and a clear runway, and I’ll take my little bird for a walk in the sky. It’s ready. I’m ready. It’s all fixed up and ready to fly, and then this shit happens. But first chance I get, I’ll fire up my little freedom bird and climb to an altitude that takes me out of rifle range. I’ll fly my bony ass to a place where it’s warm and not quite law-abiding and the women aren’t trapped inside pinup calendars. I’ll find me a well-seasoned, hard-drinking gal and we’ll have us a time.

“I found something,” Jerry says. “Come take a look. Tell me what you think.”

I follow him into the other hangar. I see an old man duct-taped to a chair. He has blood in his hair. He’s breathing, but his gray-bearded chin is down on his chest. He’s knocked out cold.

“Did you find him like that?”

Jerry lets out a sudden unexpected laugh-cough.

“Not hardly.”

“What will we do with him?”

“Beats me. He’s got an interesting family history. He’s Bill Creedmore
Senior
.”

The boys are coming for us tonight. They can’t let us go. Someday this will be over, and bad people will be brought to justice. They’re monsters, but I don’t think they’re stupid. They’re cunning, like all scavengers are. They’re cunning like we are. If they don’t know right from wrong, maybe it’s our fault, the fault of our old society, but now there’s nothing left to do but kill them, if we can.

I get Scott ready to go. I make fresh bandages from rags I found in Old Bill’s office. I don’t trust that old man, and I’m glad Jerry took precautions. I don’t let myself think we’re starting to resemble the bad people in the world. No, I don’t mind that Bill Senior is taped to a chair, and I’ll take things from him whenever I get a chance. His monster of a son has taken our Melanie from us. Maybe the old man isn’t to blame for the way his son turned out, but I firmly believe that I could take Old Bill’s
life
, and we still wouldn’t be even. No. Not in my book.

So I wrap Scott’s face in paisley cloth from one of Old Bill’s clean rags. It beats me how that man can be as dirty and stinky as a bum but still have clean rags. He made some noise and struggled against his restraints when I took the rags, but he quieted down when I pointed the shotgun muzzle at his crotch. Why old men place such value on their sexual organs, I’ll never know. Hope springs eternal, I guess, even if it doesn’t spring often. But according to my way of thinking, Bill Senior has fathered enough children.

Scotty reaches up and unwraps the bandages from his eyes. He picks up the rifle he took from one of the dead boys. His hands reach without hesitation or fumbling and he ejects the magazine and tops it off with fresh ammunition. It takes me a while to realize that his vision must be coming back.

“These boys are country boys, and they’ll track us. They’ll hunt us,” he says.

He points his crosshatched face toward me.

“What will we do with the old man?”

I shrug my shoulders and he nods.

“Okay. Now you’re making sense.”

Cold and stinking. They throw bags of corn chips and bottles of water at me before they lock me back in the car trunk. I hate them and want them to die, but then my brain starts to work again. At first I can only scream, but after a while I try to talk to them when they take me out. They only laugh at me. Power. They are power and I am meat. I could have power, too, because I found a tire iron in the trunk. But no. I won’t. This is Gandhi. This is Martin Luther King Jr. and Jesus of Nazareth and Mother Teresa. This is all of them, with me.