Dark Places (2 page)

Chapter Two

The warm nighttime breeze carried a blend of fresh popcorn, cigarettes, and the smoke from burning mosquito repellant coils into the crowded '51 Dodge truck. Marty Smallwood rested his left elbow next to the silver cast-metal speaker hanging in the open window, a can of warm Miller High Life dangling loose between his fingertips. John T. West, celebrating his recently regained freedom, mirrored Marty's position from the shotgun seat. He'd only been out of the Fort Worth jail for a month, and still had the stink of the place in his nostrils.

Freddy Vines was, as usual, the baloney in the sandwich, trying to watch the picture around the windshield's center dividing post.

On the only drive-in movie screen in Chisum, Texas, Warren Beatty stuck a cigar in his mouth and hefted two pistols in
Bonnie and Clyde
.

Marty wished he was alone in the truck with his ex-girlfriend, Shirley Fields. He'd-a lot rather have his hand under her sweater and thinking of Faye Dunaway than sit with the same two boneheads he'd been running with since they were all knee-high to a grasshopper.

“Watch this.” He pulled the headlights on, lighting the car ahead, and the startled couple snuggled up in the seat. A horn honked as the couple flipped them off in the glare. Other horns answered from across the drive-in.

Marty laughed and slapped the lights off.

“That wathn't burry funny.” Freddy's lisp had been a lifetime embarrassment. He was careful to disagree with anything Marty and John T. said or did, because they might not let him hang out with them anymore. Sometimes they made fun of his speech impediment, but neither one ever turned down his offer to pay for food, gas, or beer.

“Who's that?” John T. squinted through the smoke rising from a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. Right hand occupied with the beer can, he pointed with his little finger. He always moved with a minimum of effort.

The well-dressed man in question threaded his way through the rows of cars, balancing a cardboard tray full of popcorn and watered-down soft drinks. He was obviously a stranger to Chisum, because no one wore suits to a drive-in on Friday nights in northeast Texas. He stopped at a 1964 Impala parked ahead and to the right.

Marty barely took his eyes off the gigantic screen. He fancied himself as cool as Beatty. “I dunno. Some guy I saw in front of the courthouse a couple of days ago, hanging around with another guy, taking pictures in front of the statue and hammin' it up.”

The man passed drinks through the open window. Marty twisted the speaker dial and lowered the tinny volume. “Guy dressed like that needs somebody to bring them down a peg or two.”

“I can do it.” John T. drained his rodeo-cool beer and pulled another from the cardboard box under his feet. He levered a triangular hole in the top with a church key hanging on a string around his neck and cut a vent hole on the opposite side.

“Whath the matter with you guys? It cost uth a dollar and a half to get in here and you're talking over the movie. We're gettin' to the beth part.”

“Thut up, Freddy.” Marty's response was without emphasis or expression. “I bet they're rich.”

“What makes you say that?”

“They're driving a brand new car and wearing suits to the drive-in. Only rich people would do that.”

The man opened the driver's door, but the dome light only allowed a glimpse of dark suits and oily hair slicked back and smooth. When he slid into the seat and slammed the door, the metal speaker jumped off the window.

“Dumb bastards.” John T. lit snapped his Zippo alight with a practiced flip the girls always liked, and blew smoke into the night air. “You can break the glass that a-way.”

“Rich people don't care.”

Marty studied the car before turning his attention to the sedan beside them. He could only see a girl's leg, since she was sitting under the driver's arm. He tried to peek under the roofline, but with no luck. “Why do you think them rich guys came here tonight?”

John T. shrugged and watched two giggling teenage girls pass on their way to the concession stand. He unconsciously pulled the short sleeve of his tight tee-shirt higher over his bicep.

Marty reached past Freddy and flipped the pack of Camels from John T.'s other sleeve. He shook one out, lipped it, and scratched a kitchen match to light. “Let's have some fun with those city fellers.”

“Like what?”

Marty blew a thick stream of smoke through both nostrils. “Like take 'em on a snipe hunt.”

The cruel Southern rite of passage involved taking an unsuspecting victim into the dark woods and leaving them there with the empty promise that a fictional bird would run into a bag.

John T. cut his eyes through the smoke. “Strangers won't go with you. That sounds like something Knothead here would say.”

Freddy wished they could get back to the movie. “How about thome popcorn? I'll buy.”

In the Impala's front passenger seat, the passenger opened his door and headed toward the concession stand.

Marty lifted the speaker off the window and hung it on the post. “This cheap-ass Oklahoma beer is running straight through me.” He yanked on the stubborn handle and the door creaked loudly as it swung open.

“Hey, get thome popcorn.”

“Shut up, Freddy.”

Bustling with activity, the concession stand was an oasis of light. A line of chattering teenagers stretched back to the screen door, waiting their turn to order refreshments. Marty scanned the customers' faces and not seeing Suit Number Two, he rounded the building.

A couple of fourteen-year-old boys with hair over their collars loafed outside the doorless restroom, sharing a stolen cigarette. He shouldered past them, knocking one off balance.

“Hey!”

Marty shot the youngster a look. The kid immediately broke eye contact and toed the ground. Inside, Suit Two was washing his hands when Marty caught the man's eye in the mirror. “You don't buy beer, you just rent it.”

The comment earned him a brief smile and a nod in response.

His opening gambit failed, Marty tried again. “I don't believe I've seen you in town before.”

Suit Two drug a pocket comb through short, thick hair. “Here on business is all.”

“What brings you to a one-horse town like Chisum?”

The guy replaced the comb in an inside coat pocket, clearly ready to leave. A bulge in his coat convinced Marty the man carried a thick wallet. “Like I said, business.”

“What kind of…”

Suit Two left, disappearing through the open door and leaving Marty hanging.

Heat rose in his face from the brush-off and embarrassment. “Unfriendly son of a bitch.” He checked for feet under the stall, hoping no one had heard the exchange. The kids were gone when he was back outside.

John T. was working on a fresh beer when Marty returned to the truck. He slammed the door and hung the speaker back on the window. “I was right. That guy's wallet is fat with money.”

Inspired by the shootout on the huge screen and his recent vacation with some of Fort Worth's toughest criminals, John T. had an idea. “Then let's rob 'em.”

“Hey!” Freddy started.

Marty grinned. It was the perfect suggestion to pay the stranger back for ignoring him. “Check in the pigeon hole, there.”

John T. punched the glove box open and felt inside. He withdrew a worn snub-nose .38 revolver. “Where'd you get this?”

“It belonged to my real dad. Don't cock it. That little bastard has a hair trigger.”

John T. hefted the gun and Freddy's face flushed in fear. John T. handed it to him. Familiar with guns, Freddy still held it like it was a live snake and passed it back as quickly as he could.

The cherry on John T.'s cigarette brightened. “We'll take 'em. It'll be easy money. I need some cash to blow this burg anyway.”

Freddy shook his head and fretted. John T. always scared him a little, because he had a reputation as one of the toughest and meanest young men in Lamar County, but he also loved their dangerous association. “Naw. Thomebody‘ll recognize uth or thomething.”

Through the windshield, Bonne and Clyde fell in a spectacular slow-motion hail of bullets.

The movie ended and the credits rolled. Freddy was relieved. “Let's go out to the lake and finish the beer.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a pint of J.T.S. Brown. “We can have ourthelves a party.” Since Marty started working at the construction site, they'd taken to driving out to the unfinished lake to drink.

John T. kept weighing the pistol in his hand and Freddy felt his stomach sink. “We don't know nothin' about robbing people. You thaw what happened up there to Bonnie and Clyde.”

Marty thumped the butt out the window. “Good idea, Freddy. We'll take 'em off down to the lake and do it.”

“Hey, no, I didn't mean that!?”

John T. stuck his cigarette in the corner of his mouth, flipped out the cylinder, and checked the loads. He squinted past the smoke and flicked the cylinder closed.

The lights over the screen snapped on, flooding the cars with harsh light. Engines roared to life and vehicles crept toward the theater's only exit. Marty pulled behind the Impala.

Freddy had a bad feeling. “Why don't y'all drop me off at the house? I ain't feelin' too good.”

John T. cut a glance to the left. “You're fine.”

The doors on a Pontiac in front of the Impala flew open and a covey of shrieking kids boiled out in a Chinese fire drill. A second carload of youngsters behind their truck did the same, some switching vehicles and doubling the frenzy.

“Hot damn! Let's go!” John T. bailed out and jogged through the kids. As everyone jumped back into their cars, he jerked the door open and dropped into the Impala's backseat.

Paralyzed with fear, Freddy could only suck air. “I can't believe he'th doing that.”

They watched John T. lean forward and rest his left hand on the passenger's shoulder. Sure the pistol in his other hand was against the man's head, Freddy mumbled to himself. “Oh, pleathe don't be cocked.”

After only a moment's hesitation, the startled men slowly turn back around and the Impala inched forward. Marty finally elbowed him in the ribs. “Move over, dumbass. Folks'll think we're homos or something.”

The Impala finally passed through the only exit beside the towering screen and steered onto North Main Street, heading north toward the Red River. They quickly left Chisum behind. Marty stuck tight to the Impala as they passed harvested fields and pastures full of dozy cattle in the cold light of the three-quarter moon.

Far off across the river, the first flicker of lightning signaled an approaching storm. The wind whipping through their open windows smelled of dust, moldy leaves, and fresh cut alfalfa.

In Arthur City they followed a farm-to-market road that soon crossed the Sanders Creek Bridge. Constable Ned Parker's sedan was parked in front of his house on the hill overlooking the bottoms. Despite the hour, a light was on in the kitchen and a dog's frantic bark filled the night.

Marty grinned. “We won't have to worry about that old fart this late.”

“Where'th he going, anyhow?” Freddy checked over his shoulder to see if anyone following.

“To the lake, like we said.” Marty slowed at the crossroads intersection in front of the closed general store washed in the harsh glare of a solitary pole light. Another left turn led to a dirt road. Bare tree limbs intersected overhead in a thick autumn canopy, creating a tunnel lit only by their headlights. The last leaves of the season caked the shallow ditch as they snaked deeper into the Sanders Creek bottoms.

Then suddenly they were in the open, overlooking a gigantic fire-and-smoke-filled bowl. Below, the moonlit landscape seemed to be the site of a recent artillery battle. Not a tree stood anywhere within view, and smoking piles of logs were scattered as far as their headlights reached.

Five years of construction had destroyed the once-pristine creek bottom for a mile across and two miles upstream as the Corps of Engineers built a dam and cleared the hardwoods in preparation of closing Lake Lamar's floodgates.

Marty thought it was the perfect place for a little thievery.

Chapter Three

Grandpa gave me a good, old-fashioned butt-whoopin' that stung like the dickins, but I knew I deserved it. I took it best I could, and then we drove home…slowly, so he could talk.

“I'm more disappointed in you than anything else.”

“Yessir.”

“You need to learn to make good choices, son. We're all trying to raise you right, and you need to think before you do. Hell, even Mr. Tom Bell believed in you and Pepper so much that he sent me papers that said he'd already paid for y'all's college. Think about it, boy, a dead man believed in you that much and here you are, getting into nonsense like that.”

I knew Grandpa got a packet from Mexico, and it was a mystery to us all. Mr. Tom moved to Center Springs and tried to settle in, but he got caught up in some problems Grandpa had with bad folks who were moving marijuana into Texas. When it all came to a head, we found out Mr. Tom was a retired Texas Ranger who still had enough lead in his pencil to take on half the crooked Mexicans south of the border. We all thought Mr. Tom died down there in the jail shootout, but here we were, getting mail from a dead man.

“I miss Mr. Tom.”

“That why you're acting out?” He rubbed his stomach where he'd been shot a few months before by some crooked Mexican police.

“Nossir. But I miss him all the same.”

“Well, I do too, but don't get off on that. You need to straighten up and fly right.”

I wanted to kick Pepper's butt, but I wasn't going to rat her out, neither. “I will.”

“Good. Now, we'll keep this between ourselves. Doc said he wouldn't talk about it no more, so it's done.”

One thing about Grandpa, once we got to the house, it was over. I guess it's like when someone goes to jail and pays their debt to society, they were back on level ground. He must have felt the same about kids.

My grandmother, Miss Becky, gave me the hairy eyeball when we came through the kitchen, but didn't do much more than shake her head. “Go to bed.”

I tried not to rub my butt as I went past. I'd barely dozed off when my dog, Hootie, tuned up outside. Grandpa knew what was going on the minute he opened his eyes. “Get up, Top! Something's after the chickens.”

Shirtless, he'd already pulled on his overalls and brogans before I could get into my jeans and tee-shirt. Miss Becky threw an old green army shirt over her nightgown and we rushed across the yard.

The chickens were carrying on something fierce in the brooder house, but Hootie circled it twice, and then shot off toward the oak tree behind the hay barn, trying his best to climb up the trunk. Me and Grandpa Ned hurried up the hill while Miss Becky stayed for a minute to check the damage.

I saw a coon's eyes reflected in my flashlight beam and had to holler over Hootie's barks. “Here he is, Grandpa, and he's a big 'un!”

Grandpa came around to my side and Miss Becky joined us. I could see chicken blood on the big boar's mouth when Grandpa added his beam to mine. He reached into the pocket of his overalls and pulled out the 32.20 revolver he carried as constable. He called it his Sunday Gun, and only carried the lighter pistol on the weekends.

He handed it to me. “Think you can hit him?”

It was the first time he'd ever offered to let me shoot at something other than a target, so I took him up on it. “Sure 'nough.”

“Don't miss.” Miss Becky added her own flashlight beam. “I don't want to lose no more fryers. He's done killed half a dozen tonight for meanness.”

I thumb-cocked the pistol. Grandpa didn't say anything as I aimed. The barrel wandered around some, so I added my other hand to hold it tight. When I pulled the trigger, the muzzle flash blinded me, but I heard the coon thud on the ground at our feet.

Hootie charged in and I hardly knew when Grandpa took the pistol from my hand. “Good shot, Davy Crockett.”

“Back!” Miss Becky hollered at Hootie. He turned a-loose and backed up, still barking. She used both hands to pick the coon up by the tail. “My lands, this is the biggest ol' bandit I've ever seen.”

Hootie had it in his head that there was another one up there, so we left him barking at the empty limbs and walked back in the moonlight. He was still tellin' it when we went through the gate into the yard. Grandpa pitched the coon into his truck bed and led us up on the dark porch.

A car hissed past on the two-lane highway down the hill. Grandpa stopped, squinting. “Who's running the highway this time of the morning?”

A truck followed. Grandpa shook his head. “I swear, folks ought to be at home in bed at this time of night.” He gave me the eye. “They're probably up to something. Don't be where trouble starts, and you won't get into trouble.”

Miss Becky went in the house. I waited at screen door and hollered toward the barn. “Hootie! Get in here!”

He must have remembered what happened a few months earlier when a pack of wild dogs nearly killed him. He quit barking like I'd thrown a switch and high-tailed it to the house.

I held the door open for him and heard Grandpa talking to himself like he does.

“Folks out this time of night are up to no good. No good a'tall.”