Son of Fletch (7 page)

“Hey.” Jack trotted behind the horse. “You’re riding a horse barebacked in shorts.”

“Yeah,” Fletch said. “Just like a Native American.”

F
LETCH SAT ON
the horse at the lower end of the gully. Water still rushed down it noisily.

Sprawled in the gully, head down and forced into a loose bail of rusted barbed wire, left leg arced over an old washtub, was one of the escapees, the smaller, slimmer one, Moreno. His blank eyes stared at the cloudless sky of the new day. His throat was badly swollen.

Fletch guessed he had been bitten by either a rattlesnake or a copperhead, and then drowned.

Fletch said to himself,
And then there were three
.

F
ROM UPHILL CAME
a loud, deep guttural noise. To Fletch it sounded like “Ou-row-ouu!”

He looked up to his right.

Charging down the edge of the gully toward him came Leary, all one-sixth of a ton of him. Soaking wet, muddy, he ran head down making this noise.

Fletch twitched Heathcliffe’s rein, circled him around to the left.

As Leary pounded toward Fletch, Fletch rode the horse into him.

Leary fell back into the gully.

Fletch backed the horse off.

“Ow-row-ouu!” came from the gully.

Leary climbed out of the gully.

Again, bellowing, he charged Fletch.

Again Fletch rode the horse into him and sent Leary falling back into the gully.

The third time Leary climbed out of the gully, he stood on its edge a moment.

Fletch sat three meters away, watching him. He wondered if Leary might be thinking of a better way to solve his problems.

No. He was just catching his breath for a new charge.

“Ow-row-ouu!”

The fourth time Heathcliffe pushed Leary back into the gully, there was a god-awful holler.

“ARRRRRRRRR!”

After backing off, Fletch’s feet flicked Heathcliffe forward to the edge.

In the gully, Leary had landed on Moreno’s corpse. Arms and legs flailing, trying to get off the already bloating corpse, splashing in the rushing water, fighting off barbed wire, rotten fence posts, the holey wash tub, Leary thrashed and bellowed until he was standing. Without hesitation he leapt at the side of the gully, flung himself against it. Kicking his legs, pulling with his arms, he scrambled up the gully’s muddy side.

Standing again at the edge of the gully, Leary breathed hard. He looked down at the corpse now undulating deeper in the rushing water.

Fletch said, “‘Mornin’.”

Leary’s close-set eyes near the top of his egg-shaped head looked up at Fletch.

Fletch asked, “Are you hungry?”

Dry-heaving, clutching his stomach, Leary stumbled down the hills a meter in front of Fletch astride Heathcliffe.

F
ULL LIT BY THE LOW
morning sunlight, Jack sat on the corral’s fence watching them come over and down the last hill. As they approached, he asked, “Where’s Moreno?” Herding Leary into the corral, Fletch answered, “Dead.” As Fletch rode Heathcliffe through the corral gate, Jack quoted, “‘…just the kind that kinsfolk can’t abide…’”

I
n the kitchen
, Fletch said to Carrie: “Only three extra for breakfast.” “What happened to the other one?”

“Snakes got him.”

Carrie didn’t even look up from the stove. “Devil knows his own.”

Fletch asked, “Ham? Country ham?”

“That’s right,” Carrie said with fierceness.

“It’s going to be a right hot day,” Fletch said.

“That’s right,” Carrie said in the same tone. “And I mean to give these bastards a case of thirst that’ll make them unable to think of anything but cool, clear water. They’ll just wish they could spit!”

“Well, don’t give me any.”

“Would I do that to you?”

“God knows what you’d do to a Yankee.”

“Ah, Fletch. Don’t think of yourself as a Yankee anymore. You’re about gettin’ over it.”

Fletch began breaking eggs into a large bowl.

Jack had been amazed to see Fletch come out of the henhouse carrying eleven eggs. “Wow!” he said. “You make your own eggs!” Then he said, “They’re dirty!”

Fletch said, “You think they were hatched already scrambled with milk and butter?”

Jack grinned. “I was hatched sunnyside up, I was.”

“I see,” Fletch said. “So you scrambled yourself.”

Near them on the driveway outside the henhouse, Leary, clutching his stomach, stumbled around in small circles. Exhausted, bruised, frightened, nearly drowned, run over by a horse, terrified by landing on a corpse, he was about as worn down as a man could be.

Fletch thought Leary did not have a whole lot of fight left in him.

Emory had parked his noisy truck in the shade of one of the sheds. He had fed the horses and the hens.

When Fletch came out of the henhouse, Emory was standing aside. First his eyes studied Jack. Then Leary.

Then he looked at Fletch.

Fletch said, “Say hello to Jack Fletcher, Emory.”

“Jack Fletcher?” It was hard to surprise or impress Emory. In the years Emory had worked for Fletch he had seen many people, country-music stars, authors, politicians, African and African-American leaders, slip on and off the farm. When people in the area asked Emory who had just been to the farm, Emory’s answer had always been the same:
I didn’t notice
. Fletch knew Emory would not ask if Jack were son, nephew, cousin, or coincidence.

Emory and Jack shook hands.

Warily, Emory looked at Leary again. Fletch noticed that Leary’s shirt and jeans were so muddy and torn the signs
identifying him as a convict were invisible. “Who’s he? Is he goin’ to be workin’ here?”

“No,” Fletch answered. “In fact, Emory, I want you to do this for me. Go get the truck and put the cattle grills on it.” The grills were steel bars that would make a pen, nine feet high, all three sides, on the back of the pickup truck. “Throw a couple of small bales of hay on it. Then put that calf bull aboard, that little bastard who’s discovered he can walk through barbed wire fences. Then put the truck up near the house, in the shade.”

Jack muttered, “Wish you wouldn’t be so free with the word
bastard.”

“Sorry, Coitus Interruptus.”

Emory started to move toward the house to get the truck. “You heard the news yet this mornin’?” He appeared to be asking his boots.

“No,” Fletch answered. “Anything interesting?”

Emory turned around and walked backward. “Something about escaped convicts. Nine or ten of them. From Missouri, or some such place. They say they’re here somewhere in the county.”

“Oh, sure,” Fletch said. “They always have to make a story, don’t they? Just to frighten the horses. By the way, Emory, Carrie will be deliverin’ the bull for me, and I’ll be takin’ Jack here down to the University of North Alabama. If anyone’s lookin’ for us.”

“Not to worry.” Emory turned around to walk frontward over the bridge. “I brought my gun.”

Driving the truck, Emory passed Fletch and Jack herding Leary toward the back of the house.

In the kitchen, Fletch said to Carrie, “The third one is outside. His name is Leary. I told Jack to get him stript and hose him down.”

Carrie looked through the kitchen window. “Big. Ugly.”

“Stupid.”

In low voices, while cooking together, Fletch outlined his thoughts regarding the truck, the bull calf, Leary, Carrie; the station wagon, Jack, Kriegel, himself. Carrie not only agreed, she relished the plan. She refined a few of its elements.

They focused on what they did not yet know.

Outside the back door, Fletch waited for Jack to turn off the hose before handing him a plate of ham and eggs. Standing in the morning sunlight, Jack proceeded to eat his breakfast.

When Fletch handed Leary his breakfast, Leary sat cross-legged on the grassy slope, naked and wet, to eat. Obviously he had lifted weights at one time. Most of his bulk had slipped into his gut, ass, thighs. His skin was pure white. He seemed to wrap his whole body around his plate of food.

He looked like a huge, hairless, white baby.

Fletch dropped a big garbage bag on the ground. He said to Jack. “Put everyone’s clothes and boots in this.”

“Then what do I do with it?”

“I haven’t figured that out yet. The cops will be here later. To collect Moreno.”

Jack looked up at him. “Just Moreno?”

“The rest of you will be gone by then. By the way, where are we really going?”

“Uh? South.”

Fletch repeated, “Where are we really going?”

“Tolliver, Alabama. There’s a camp there. In the woods. You know where Tolliver is?”

“Yes. Are you expected there?”

“Kriegel is.”

“What kind of a camp? Boy Scout?”

“The Tribe.” Jack watched Fletch’s face.

“The Tribe? What’s that when it’s at home?”

“If you don’t know,” Jack said, “you’ll find out. I want you to find out.”

“A grand bunch of sterling chaps, I’m sure.”

“Sure,” Jack said. “Like a hunting camp, you know?”

“Paramilitary? Do they have a good marching band?”

“By the way, may I bring the guitar?”

“That will be nice. You can lead the singing around the campfire. I’ll bring the marshmallows.”

In the morning light, Jack was squinting at Fletch’s face.

Fletch asked, “If you’re Kriegel’s lieutenant, what’s Leary’s function?”

“Bodyguard.”

“Kriegel’s bodyguard?”

“Yeah.”

Fletch nodded at the big baby sitting naked on the grass. He had dropped scrambled egg onto his stomach. With his hand he had slathered it up onto his chest. “I can see he would be good at that. Who wouldn’t want to stay away from him? Did he kidnap someone because he was lonely?”

“I think you’re about right,” Jack said.

“Whom did he kidnap?”

“A teenaged girl. I think he thought they were eloping.”

“She didn’t think so?”

“No. And he carried her across a state line.”

“The Mann Act. Did he rape her?”

“I think he thought he was making love. He kept her three weeks in a school bus. When he finally understood she didn’t like him, he went to a pool hall and tried to sell her.”

“His feelings were hurt.”

“Again I think you’re right.”

Leary must have been hearing them talking about him. He never even looked up. He kept scoffing his food with his fingers.

Jack said, “You might say he just didn’t know how to do things right.”

Watching Leary eat, hearing about him, Fletch’s stomach churned. “Not properly brought up, you might say.”

Jack said, “You might say that.”

“And Moreno?” Fletch asked. “What was his role in this scheme?”

“Money. He had a stash of it. In Florida.”

“Drug money?”

“Yeah.”

“You all were going to rob him?”

“Rob him? He owed us.” Jack grinned. “Then we were going to rob him. Once we knew how to get to his money.”

“For a guitar picker, you sure know some different scales.” Avoiding the puddles, Fletch walked toward the smokehouse.

“Hey,” Jack said. “Don’t I get any coffee?”

“You drink coffee?”

“Sure.”

“You can go in the house. Ask Carrie to help you find some clothes for your traveling companions. White shirt, decent slacks for Kriegel, maybe a necktie. Overalls for Leary. I don’t want Leary wearing a shirt.”

Glancing at Leary’s blubber, Jack muttered, “I do.”

“W
E ARE SORRY
, but due to seismic disturbances, your telephone call to this exchange in California cannot be completed at this time. Please try your call at a later time.”

“Wow.” Fletch was in the smokehouse, with the door closed, using his cellular phone. “‘Seismic disturbances’! They’re so used to California rockin’ and rollin’ they’re ready with a recorded message! A recorded message about seismic disturbances! So cool!
We are sorry
, Fletch imitated the computer voice,
as California has just crumbled into the ocean and whoever you are calling doubtlessly has just been swallowed by earth, fire, or water, we are unable to complete your call. Have a nice day!
Should have called Andy Cyst in the first place. Last night.”

While punching in Alston Chambers’s home telephone number, Fletch had felt a twinge of guilt. He was sure he would be waking Alston and his whole family. He assuaged his guilt by telling himself that matters had gotten to such a point at the farm, his inferences had been so unsettling, especially regarding a son,
Crystal’s son
—to say nothing of his having a murderer, a rapist-kidnapper, an attempted murderer, and a corpse underfoot; that he was apparently aiding these fugitives from justice; that he was going somewhere, being taken somewhere of which he was distinctly unsure; that now Carrie was involved, however gladly, whimsically in his reaching out to his son,
Crystal’s son
, his trying to discover the truth about him, perhaps irrationally risking too much for someone essentially a stranger with a poor resume, desperately he needed factual information. From the telephone company’s recorded message, Fletch now assumed Alston and his family were up. Or down. Or in or out.

Now punching in Andy Cyst’s home telephone number in Virginia, California passed before Fletch’s eyes: some of his life, experiences there; some of his friends, people he loved, others.

What was happening to them?

Andy answered on the first ring. “Hello?”

“Andy, what’s happening in California?”

“Aftershocks?” Andy answered. “Foreshocks? Another of the big ones? Geologists, as you know, Mister Fletcher, are slow to commit to their jargon.”

“Any real damage reported?”

“Many communication lines aren’t working. So we don’t know. This series started just an hour ago. Where are you?”

“At the farm. I’m not really calling about California.”

“Good.” Andy’s voice was always eager. Not this morning. “Ask me something I know.”

“Andy, you don’t sound like your old self.”

“I’m fine.”

“A little irascible?”

“Just fine.”

Having been a print journalist, and someone who had written a book, Fletch persisted in believing there was not much future in electronics, generally. Therefore, in an effort to dispose of some money he never was sure he deserved, many years previously he had invested in a start-up business called Global Cable News.