Corrosion (21 page)

I cocked the shotgun and aimed it at her forehead. You’ll kill him, I said. Or else I’ll kill the both of you.

Victor piped up again. Don’t do this. They’ll find you. And they’ll hang you. We’ll give you the money if that’s what you want. All of it. $250,000.

I don’t want your money, I whispered. Only your blood.

Lilith changed strategies. Went for the heartstrings. Joseph. Please. Think about what you’re doing. Think about me. When you came to that bar and saw Nick knocking me around, you stood up for me. You protected me. You don’t have to murder anymore. You can save three lives today.

I turned toward the whore, said, He who knows how to save lives best knows how to destroy them. Which brings me to this point. The movies have taught you all wrong. When you stand behind someone to slit his throat, don’t pull his head backward. What you need to do is push his head forward, bring those vessels together. That way, he’ll be dead in minutes, not hours.

She shook her head. Where did you learn all of that, Joseph?

The Marines, that’s where! 1st Battalion, 7th Regiment, 1st Division! Stationed in Mosul! I served, damn it! I served with honor!

Then I raised the shotgun again and clenched my teeth. It’s time, I said. It’s time for this goddamn wetback to bleed. Make up your mind. And think wisely, Lilith. You don’t do it, I’ll blow your goddamn brains out, so help me God.

Fuck you, she said again, but the spunk was gone. I’m not gonna kill him.

Victor nodded his head. It’s okay, Lilith, he said. Do it. Kill me. Save your own life. Jesus awaits me!

Everything happened quickly then. My mind couldn’t keep up. Little snippets. Lilith lunging forward. The knife slashing across his throat. Blood spilling over his chest. Body twitching, eyes wide in agony. Lilith collapsing to the floor, the bloody knife clattering next to her. And then silence, God hanging from a noose.

CHAPTER 32

I pulled Lilith to her feet, held her close to me, felt her breath and the blood in her veins. She wasn’t crying, just staring straight ahead. Dead, was all she said. And I couldn’t argue with her.

There were no fingerprints to wipe down, no DNA to remove. They’d figure out who did it, but they’d never find us. Not where we were going.

I held the shotgun with one hand and Lilith with the other. We staggered across the street toward the truck. The cripple who’d been working on his car was gone and the streets were deserted.

I tossed the shotgun in the bed and helped Lilith into the truck. Any fight she’d had was gone—her body was limp, her eyes empty. I hit the engine and thought things over. Nick McClellan was dead and so was Victor
Vaquero
, and I was alive and Lilith wouldn’t leave me.

And then we were back on the chimney smoke highway, and it was cold and gray and lonely, which is the way things are on the plains in November. Dead leaves and crows and radio static and hair slicked back with Wild Root Cream Oil.

Lilith rested her head on the glass, face pale and sickly. Her flannel shirt was covered with Victor’s blood. There were spatters on her face and hands, too. Sins that could never be washed away. We drove in silence.

Well, we must have gone 20 miles or so when we came upon this ramshackle trading post. The wooden structure was rotting, and weeds grew through the broken pavement. A hand-painted sign read
Cowboy Bob’s
. I parked the truck behind an old rusted Mercury Coup, told Lilith that I’d be keeping an eye on her, but she was too far gone to respond. I went inside and bought a package of beef jerky, a can of Rooster dip, a package of hand wipes, and a sweatshirt with a picture of a wolf on it. I asked the one-armed dwarf of a cashier if I could use the phone and he said there was a pay phone on the side of the building. I thanked him, walked outside, located the phone. I dialed a number that I’d never forgotten. 719-522-1638. I let it ring 10, 12 times. No answer. I slammed down the receiver and strode back to the car.

Lilith stared straight ahead, eyes still as dead as could be. I pulled out some wipes, tried cleaning the blood off her hands and face. No good. Then I handed her the sweatshirt and told her to change. She didn’t hear me. She just kept staring.

The hearse engine was noisy, but the pickup drove smoothly. The fellow at the auto shop had done good work and I was glad I hadn’t given up on the old truck. I drove a good ten miles below the speed limit because I didn’t want to get pulled over. Outside, the world was stark and gray, the landscape a shoddy charcoal painting. Skeleton trees stretched out with contorted branches, and sagging telephone wires swayed in the wind. And there an abandoned and burned farmhouse surrounded by dying alfalfa and junkyard automobiles. Ravens and vultures skulked up ahead, waiting, waiting. Off in the distance, the silhouette of the mountains was getting closer and closer.

As we drove, I kept glancing in my rearview mirror, waiting for the flashing lights, but Sheriff Baker was nowhere to be seen. I found a country music station on the radio. It was filled with static and kept fading in and out. Sometimes a man speaking in hallucinogenic Spanish would cut in, then it would shift back to music. Snow fell slantways. Lilith’s eyes closed, and she slept fitfully.

Another hour and we were in the foothills, driving through winding roads surrounded by lodgepoles and pine trees and aspens, an occasional lonely log cabin on a rutted path. The windshield wipers slapped away the snow and soon the voices on the radio were gone and it was just static. We drove higher and higher, the snowcapped mountains towering ominously. I drank some brandy and chewed some tobacco, trying to relax myself. There were no other cars, and I kept worrying that I was dead. How long had it been? Why was I coming back?

The sky was the color of champagne and my eyes were kaleidoscope lenses. There was a strange magnetic force, pulling me toward my destiny, toward that evil place. I couldn’t have turned around if I had wanted to. A couple of times Lilith jerked awake, remembered the narrative, and closed her eyes, a single tear escaping from beneath her lashes.

I drove slowly, concentrating on the winding road. I tried hard not to think about death and destruction, but it was no use. Nightmares were my waking state now.

And after some time, we came upon the vestiges of a living ghost town, the junkyard of cars at the entrance providing a symbolic barricade from unwanted visitors. And then a wooden sign, faded and weather-beaten.
Silverville. Elevation 9,228 Feet.
Hands gripping the steering wheel, knuckles white, I drove slowly past the broken-down jalopies, and onto Gold Street. Nothing quaint here, just a handful of worn-out brick buildings, including a little restaurant called the Miner’s Café.

My breathing quickened and sweat dribbled from my forehead, stinging my eyes.
They’ll never find us.
I parked the car out front of the restaurant, shook Lilith awake. Time to eat, I said.

Her eyes fluttered open and she watched me with that dead expression. I’m not hungry, she said.

You’ve gotta eat, I said. Don’t know when our next meal will be.

I opened the door and stepped outside, then opened the passenger-side door and helped Lilith out. The air was cold and my breath was thick.

We walked slowly toward the restaurant and ghosts were whispering in my ear. I pushed open the door and we stepped inside. It was a peculiar-looking place, a hoarder’s dream. There were cow and elk and bison heads stuck to the wall, and there was a telephone booth and a saddle and a wooden cowboy and a wooden stove. There was a rifle and a mining lantern and a saloon door and paintings of people long dead. And hanging from the ceiling: a chandelier, a noose, and a snarling wolf.

Our feet echoed on the hardwood floor. The usual cast of characters was sitting at the counter: a skinny man with frightened eyes and an Elmer Fudd hat; a fat man with mutton chops and a NASCAR leather jacket; another fat man with a beard and a lumberjack shirt; and Miss Lonelyheart, face full of heartache. And standing alone in the corner with a candy cigarette dangling from his mouth, a stooped old man with a dustbowl face and aviator shades.

We sat down at a long picnic table in the middle of the café. Nobody paid us any mind, not even the waitress, a woman with balding hair and missing teeth. I handed Lilith a menu, but she dropped it on the table. Time passed. The waitress ignored us.

Eventually I rose to my feet and made my way to the counter. The waitress finished joking with the customers and nodded at me. What can I get for you, darlin’? She studied the torment in my eyes and the scar tissue on my face and I could see that she was more than a little bit frightened of the monster in her presence.

Two coffees and two slices of cherry pie, I said.

Be coming right up, she said.

And then from the corner: I seen ya before! Right here in Silverville! With my own eyes! It was the stooped old man, ranting, his back toward me, hands fluttering in the air like moths.

Shaking my head, I returned to the table and sat down. Lilith stared straight ahead, face expressionless and soul missing, like one of those lobotomy patients from long ago. Outside, the wind moaned like a Halloween ghost. A few minutes later, the waitress came and slid a couple of healthy slices of pie on the table. Then she poured the mud, offered us some cream. And just to make conversation: You two from around here or just passing through?

Lilith opened her mouth like she was going to say something, but nothing came out. She closed her mouth and blinked slowly. Haven’t decided, I said.

Hey, Betty, I’m running a little dry, one of the fat men shouted.

The waitress returned to her clientele, and I drank my coffee and ate my pie. Lilith didn’t even glance at her food. Instead her eyes were fixated on something behind me. I turned around. On the back wall, behind the register, was an oversized portrait of a redheaded woman, surrounded by flowers and saints and crosses. I felt my chest tighten.

That woman…she said, her voice dreamy.

I tried distracting her, pushed the piece of pie her way.

That woman…Lilith said again, this time loud enough for the waitress to hear her.

The balding waitress looked up at the portrait, then sighed and shook her head. Name’s Constance Durban, she said. She used to work here.

Used to work here? What happened to her?

She disappeared.

Disappeared?

I couldn’t figure Lilith’s interest. Her eyes shone brightly, her soul momentarily back in place.

The waitress flashed a conspiratorial smile. Don’t let the hushed setting fool you. Silverville is a hamlet of sins, a million secrets buried alive.

Did somebody hurt her? Lilith asked.

The other folks at the counter all gave us sideways glances. Miss, said the skinny man with the Elmer Fudd hat, it’s best not to talk about those things. Best not to reopen wounds.

Then maybe you should take down the picture, I said.

Sure as hell know him! shouted the crazy man in the corner. Known him since he was a lad! The devil he is, plain and simple!

You hush, Kyle! the waitress said in a firm voice, and he shut up but quick.

After that, nobody talked for a while and the mood was solemn. I finished my coffee and pie, got to work on Lilith’s. That woman…she said again.

I threw down my fork, wiped my mouth. When I spoke again, my own words surprised me. It was like another person speaking. You know an old man named Flan Faulk?

Nobody answered, heads bent down.

I heard he went crazy. Stories of rats and rotting corpses. Did he go crazy?

Silence. I nodded at Lilith. Let’s get out of here, I said. You go on outside, wait in the truck. I’m gonna pay. Lilith did as she was told. I kept an eye on her as she walked to the truck, opened the door, and sat inside. No longer conniving, just obedient.

I walked up to the counter, threw down a twenty on the table. Yes, sir, I said. I heard he went crazy and I heard his son went crazy, too. Butchered Constance Durban. Buried her body in the side of the mountain. Do I have the story right?

The waitress looked up from wiping the counter. She was thrown off guard. You’ve got some nerve, mister.

I only ask because I knew the both of them, a long time ago.

Miss Lonelyheart looked up from her iced tea, snarled. Yeah, you got the story about right. They were lunatics, the both of them.

And they never found young Benton, did they?

Everybody looked at each other, but nobody answered.

And they never found Constance Durban, neither?

More silence.

And Flan Faulk?

Mr. NASCAR spit a stream of brown tobacco into a cup. Then he said, Them Denver doctors let him out. Figgered he wasn’t crazy no more. You ask me, they figgered wrong. He’s back in Silverville. At his old place. Keeps to hisself, mostly.

I nodded my head, said, I’m much obliged, and started walking toward the door. I could feel a roomful of eyes staring at the back of my head.

I’d just turned the doorknob when I felt somebody grab my shoulder. I spun around, came face-to-face with the crazy old man. I knew who you was from the moment you set foot in here! I never forget a face! You’re the boy who did the killin’! Then he pulled off his sunglasses and his eyes darted spastically back and forth across his sockets. The eyes of a blind man.