Fully Loaded (6 page)

Sheriff James flicked the light, felt the breath leave him, blinking through the tears.

He leaned the shotgun against the wall and stepped inside the bathroom.

The cheap fiberglass of the tub had been lined with blankets and pillows, and the little boy was sitting up staring at the sheriff, orange earplugs protruding from his ears.

The sheriff knelt down, smiled at the boy, pulled out the earplugs.

“You okay, Joel?”

The boy said, “A noise woke me up.”

“Did he make you sleep in here?”

“Mitchell said if I was a good boy and kept my earplugs in and stayed in here all night, I could see my Daddy in the morning.”

“He did, huh?”

“Where’s my Daddy?”

“Down in the parking lot.
 
We’ll take you to him, but I need to ask you something first.”
 
The sheriff sat down on the cracked linoleum tile.
 
“Did Mitchell hurt you?”

“No.”

“He didn’t touch you anywhere private or make you touch him?”

“No, we just sat on the bed and watched about spiders and stuff.”

“You mean on the TV?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s that?”
 
The sheriff pointed to the notebook sitting on a pillow under the faucet.

“Mitchell said to give this to the people who came to get me.”

Wade walked into the bathroom, stood behind the sheriff as he lifted the spiral-bound notebook and opened the red cover to a page of handwriting in black ink.

“What is it?” Wade asked.

“It’s to his wife.”

“What’s it say?”

The sheriff closed the notebook.
 
“I believe that’s some of her business.”
 
He stood, faced his deputy, snow melting off his Stetson.
 
“Get this boy wrapped up in some blankets and bring him down to his dad.
 
I
gotta
go call Lisa Griggs.”

“Will do.”

“And Wade?”

“Yeah?”

“You throw a blanket over Mr. Griggs before you bring Joel out.
 
Don’t want so much as a strand of hair visible.
 
Shield the boy’s eyes if you have to, maybe even turn the lights out when you carry him through the room.”
 

The deputy shook his head.
 
“What the hell was wrong with this man?”

“You
  
got kids yet, Wade?”

“You know I don’t.”

“Well, just a heads up—if you ever do, this is how much they make you love them.”

An introduction to “On the Good, Red Road”

This story takes place in the universe of my third book, ABANDON, and is a companion piece to that novel. It works fine as a standalone, but will be a richer experience for those who have read ABANDON, as this one explores how
Oatha
Wallace came to the mining town in the autumn of 1893, delving into the doomed journey from Silverton to Abandon, which turned this pacifist into a murderous outlaw.

on the good, red road

October 1893

San Juan Mountains

Southwest Colorado

If
Durango
was on the road to hell, Silverton had already gotten there and staked a claim—enough whorehouses, dancehalls, and gambling halls to service a city ten times the size.

Oatha
settled on one of the less rowdy saloons for his nightcap, pushing through the throng of revelers to get in line behind a man at a barstool nursing three brimming shots, the surface of the whiskies trembling from the vibration of
bootstomps
on floorboards.
 
Hands grazed his shoulders and he turned to see a toothless, blond whore in nothing but stockings and a corset grinning at him.

“Bet you could use a trim,” she said.

“Not tonight.”
 

She went on through the crowd, availing her services, and through the smoky lowlight,
Oatha
caught shards of his grimy reflection in the constellation of liquor bottles behind the bar.

He’d been waiting ten minutes for the barkeep to notice him, when a voice lifted above the din, “You
gotta
yell out you
wanna
drink in this shithole!”

Oatha
glanced back, saw a pale,
smoothshaven
man of thirty or so waving him over, his face half-obscured by dirty, chin-length yellow hair.
 
At the table sat three men, and the one who’d called out to him motioned to an uncorked bottle of whiskey upon which the trio had already inflicted substantial damage.

“Happy to share.”

Oatha
relinquished his place in line and threaded his way through the crowd to the table, where they’d already pushed out the last remaining chair.
 
Oatha
sat, extended his hand across a filthy set of playing cards and a pot of tiny pokes, a few crumpled dollars, a double eagle, and a voucher for fifteen minutes with a whore called Grizzly Sow.

“
Oatha
Wallace.”

“Nathan
Curtice
.
 
This is Marion
McClurg
and Daniel Smith.”
 

“Boys.”

McClurg
, a larded beast of a man, reached forward and pulled the pot toward his corner of the table while Dan eyed
Oatha
.

“Play cards?” Nathan asked.

“Not often.”

Nathan poured a whiskey, pushed the glass to
Oatha
, who took it up and tossed it back with a fleeting grimace.

“Two dollars gets you in on the next hand.”

“Well, I’m trying to save my money—”

“For what?”

“A horse.”

“A horse.”

“I’m traveling on to Abandon.
 
Got a job with the Godsend Mine.”

“No shit,” Nathan said.
 
“I’m headed that very direction myself to visit my brother.
 
He’s sheriff up there.
 
Maybe you heard of him…Ezekiel
Curtice
.”

“I haven’t.”

“Yeah, I can’t quite believe what that outlaw’s become myself.”

McClurg
shuffled the cards while Dan refilled the tumblers.

“You been to Abandon?” Nathan asked.

“First time.”

“What I heard, even across lots, it’s a twenty mile ride through hard country.”

Oatha
felt the cards sliding under his fingers,
McClurg
already dealing.

“Don’t
wanna
play.”

“Few hands won’t kill ye,” Nathan said.

Dan muttered, “Man bought you two drinks already.
 
‘Less you some boiled shirt, least you can do is play a hand.”
 
Oatha
looked over at Dan, the man thin as a totem,
gant
up and blanched like he carried some parasite.
 
Oatha
reached into his leather pouch, selected several pieces of hard chink, and tossed the coins into the middle of the table.

Two hours later,
Oatha
stumbled out of the saloon, and he barely made it into an alley before spewing his supper against the clapboard.

Nathan stood chuckling behind him.
 
“You can’t play cards for shit.”

“Yeah,”
Oatha
groaned as he leaned against the wall, bracing for the next round of nausea.
 
“And I got barely the money for a horse now.”

“Wouldn’t fret.”

Oatha
spit.
 
“Why’s that?”

“Like I said, me and the boys
headin
to Abandon in two days.
 
Travel with us, you want.
 
Dan’s got a mule you can ride.”

“A mule.”

“Mean son of a bitch name a Rusty.”

Oatha
straightened, tried to center himself over his feet, the world tilting.
 
On the second floor of a false-fronted building across the street, a headboard smacked repeatedly into a wall and bedsprings squealed like ravenous pigs.
 
Against the dark, Nathan was just a silhouette.
 

“You sure?”
Oatha
asked.

“Yeah, you don’t
wanna
be
takin
that trail to Abandon on your own anyhow.
 
Wild country out there, bad people in it.”

“I’m obliged,”
Oatha
said, though he wasn’t.
 
Last thing he wanted was these men for extended company.
 

“You get yourself home?” Nathan asked.

“Believe so.”

“I’m
gonna
go scare up a little snatch.”

Nathan wandered off toward
Blair Street
, an assured elegance to his drunken gait, and
Oatha
sat down against the back of the saloon to let his head clear, get his bearings straight for the long stagger back to the hotel.

He woke stiff and cold some hours later, still sitting up against the back of the saloon, his

gray frockcoat glazed with a heavy frost.
 
The throbbing at the base of his skull was his

pulse, and it quickened as he struggled to his feet in the thin air.
 

The predawn sky held a deep lavender tint, the surrounding peaks stark black against it, like patches of starless space, and aside from the
candleflames
in the windows of the cribs, this boom town stood as still and dark as a man might hope to see it.

Oatha
bought a
lineback
canelo
from a greaser at the livery, an old saddle, and provisions for two days, including tobacco and a quart of whiskey.
 
Struck out of Silverton in the late afternoon, even as the sun perched on a jagged ridge of peaks in the west.

At dusk, he was three miles out of town, camped along a drowsy stream downsized to a trickle in these dry weeks of autumn.
 
Oatha
lay smoking on his bedroll, staring up through the spruce at pieces of the night sky, moonless and
starblown
.
 
If he rode hard, he’d make Abandon by nightfall.
 
It all seemed like the start of something for him, a new direction.
 
He was fifty-one, and maybe it was time he got his life right, started walking that road his friend,
Sik’is
, had always talked about.

The restlessness of the horse tore him out of the dream, and
Oatha
sat up before his eyes opened.
 
It was light out, though still early, maybe an hour past dawn.
 
He got up, walked over to the mare and rubbed her neck.

In the near distance, a twig snapped, followed by the clink of bits and leather saddles creaking in the cold.
 
Oatha
spotted movement through the trees.
 
Though he’d star-pitched fifty feet off the trail, he now realized he was still in easy eyeshot of any passersby who happened to glance in his general direction.

He counted three riders moving up the trail and was debating whether to hail them or just let them pass, none the wiser of his presence, when a voice called out, “Got breakfast ready,
Oatha
?”

Now Nathan was coming toward him through the trees astride an apron-faced gelding.

“Hello there, boys.”
 
Oatha
mustering more enthusiasm than he felt, something unnerving about being in proximity to Nathan
Curtice
in the middle of nowhere that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
 

Nathan, Dan, and
McClurg
rode up, and Nathan dismounted, walked over to
Oatha
, glancing at his bedroll, his horse, as if he’d caught him stepping out.

“Got yourself that new horse,” Nathan said.

Oatha
nodded.
 

“You know you’ve hurt Rusty’s feelings.”

“Who?”

McClurg
snorted.

“Oh, the mule.
 
Came looking for you boys yesterday,”
Oatha
lied, “see if you wanted to start out a day early.”
 
The way Nathan stared into his eyes bothered
Oatha
, like the man was looking through his head, reading the scrawl on the back of his skull.