Taming the Star Runner (10 page)

She slipped out of his grip, facing him levelly.

“But you saw what I just did. It wasn't being ‘brave' for nineteen seconds. It was being brave a year ago when it took two people to hold him while I mounted. It was being brave enough to spend money I don't have on dressage lessons. It was all the time I spent riding instead of movies, pizza—and rolling around in the hay with a boyfriend. Can't you see that was more than just a jump-off? It was … it was…”

“It was art,” said Travis.

Her eyes narrowed like Motorboat's in front of a mouse hole.

“How do you know this stuff? You know things about me my own mother doesn't know.”

He just leaned forward and kissed her again, softly.

“With us, it'd be a lot more than a roll in the hay.”

“I know,” Casey answered. “That's what scares me.”

He backed off, knowing if he pressed her he'd lose her.

The regret in her voice, saying no, thrilled him more than any yes he'd ever had.

He did his first interview on television. It wasn't a big success. Ken's friend, Steve Slade, managed a local TV station and asked him to be on the noon news. Not a long interview, just a couple of minutes, nothing in depth. A piece of cake.

Travis said sure. He wasn't certain what indepth was anyway; a couple of minutes shouldn't be too hard. He might as well start getting used to it.

Ken arranged to get him out of school for two hours, and drive him to the station.

“I've got to see a realtor anyway.”

Travis was trying to figure out what he ought to wear; it took a long time for his mind to replay that last statement.

“What you going to see a realtor about?”

“I'm putting the place up for sale and looking for a house in town.”

“What about Casey?” It popped into his head and it bounced right out of his mouth before he could stop it.

It certainly wasn't the first thing Ken expected him to ask. His eyebrows twisted upward.

“What about Casey?”

“Well,” Travis said, “is she gonna have to get another barn or something?”

“Probably. I'll give her enough notice. Afraid of losing your job?”

Travis shrugged. He had thought of something else. He didn't know how to ask if there was going to be room for him in the new house.

“You won't mind changing schools?”

His neck muscles relaxed so suddenly he felt limp.

“Naw. I won't mind.”

A new school. God, he'd love a crack at a new school. Maybe it'd be a bigger one with more different kinds of groups, he could find some people to hang out with and not be stuck playing the Invisible Man.

“Thanks,” he said absently.

Ken didn't say, “For what?” He said, “You're welcome.” So that saved a lot of embarrassing conversation.

“You want to sell the place?” Travis asked.

Ken sighed. “Kid, your mind travels in the strangest directions. Most people go from A to B to C—you go from A to maybe Q and end up at L … I've got to sell it. I don't have the time or the capital to get into horse ranching, especially in this economy. I don't like to spend as much time driving as I'm doing. I think it'd be easier for Christopher if I were in town too.”

“I thought maybe you guys were going to get back together.”

“I don't know. You know what I dread? Dating. God, it used to be bad enough, asking ‘What's your sign?' Now, it'll be ‘How'd your blood test?' ”

Travis shook his head. These old guys, they could think of the weirdest things. Dating.

“Aw, it'll be fun,” he said, trying to cheer him up.

“You have no idea how much fun a Saturday night at home with your wife and kid and a pizza can be.”

Travis sighed. The day a Saturday night home with a wife and kid and pizza looked fun to him, he was going to blow his brains out.

“Don't wear black,” Ken said suddenly. “Steve told me to tell you not to wear black.”

He wore his olive-colored long-sleeved buttoned undershirt, and when he realized how cold it was going to be here in the studio he left his jacket on too.

It was a big warehouse kind of room, the set was just a desk in front of a wall, a lot smaller than he'd thought it would be. There were cables lying around all over the floor. He tripped on two.

“Let's get you miked,” Steve was saying. He'd introduced them to the newscaster, a young black woman who looked like a model, and the camera crew.

He sat behind the desk while they clipped a mike onto his collar, hiding the black wire under his jacket.

“Nervous?” asked Steve. He probably didn't leave his office for everybody they had on the noon news. He was taking the time because he was friends with Ken.

“Naw. If I goof up you can just shoot it again.”

“What?”

“That's what we did in mass communications class. In sixth grade we taped a news show.” Travis was growing uneasy, because this seemed to be a big joke to everyone.

“This is live,” Steve said.

Travis felt his tongue starting to swell. It was a very weird sensation. It swelled until it felt as big as a dinner plate.

This was live.

“You were okay,” Ken said. “You look good on camera.”

Travis stared out the window. He hadn't been okay. He'd been god-awful. He must have looked like a moron. He'd been so nervous he'd actually gotten tears in his eyes—Ken said you couldn't tell, but Travis knew he'd still looked like a moron. A good-looking moron, maybe.

“You just have to learn to speak in sentences, you know, answer questions with more than yeah and naw. Get glib.”

Get glib.

“On TV, you don't have time for a lot of pauses. Every second seems like a minute, a minute seems like an hour. You've got to remember your medium.”

“So who made you a director?” Travis muttered. Who the hell cared? His medium was writing, not talking.

He wanted to do this, interviews and stuff. For the first time he realized how bad he wanted to do this.

I can learn it, he thought. Next time'll be different. In his mind he started writing answers to the questions she'd asked him. Writing answers in sentences. Getting glib.

He'd hoped maybe one of the teachers would ask him where he'd been that morning; he would be casual as hell while replying, “Oh, I was on the news,” or maybe, “Doing a television show.” He was getting a little antsy to let them know they were dealing with a real writer here.

But nobody asked him anything. Everyone had left him alone and now they thought he wanted it that way. They had made him into a loner and then acted like it was his idea. Travis had never before realized how much your status depended on other people. He'd thought you got to choose your group. Well, you didn't. But he tried to pull off the loner role with as much dignity as possible: When the guys in the smoke hole talked about going to the river to do some long-neckin' (he had picked up on some of the local jargon: longneckin' meant drinking beer) he didn't beg to go too. Bunch of hicks in a four-wheel drive, sitting in the sand chugging Coors—how cool could that be?

He walked off to spend his lunch hour in the library. If they got the impression he was some kind of psycho who'd come to school with a gun someday, well, that was their impression.

He wanted out of this school so bad. Even if it meant not seeing Casey every day. He had to get out of here before he broke down and begged to go long-neckin' with hicks.

When he answered the phone that afternoon he wasn't too surprised that it was Joe. He'd been thinking about the guys so strong, he'd even had a feeling that it was Joe when the phone rang. Sometimes he was kind of psychic about phone calls and stuff like that.

“Travis?”

“Yeah. Joe?”

“Yeah. Can you come and get me?”

“I can't hear you, man. This is a lousy connection.

“I'm at the Quik Trip over on Highway Fifty-one. Can you come and get me? I can't walk, man, I jumped outta the car and messed up my leg…”

Travis could hardly understand him, his voice had no air behind it, he was surprised now he'd recognized it—what the hell was going on?

“How'd you get here?”

“I hitched, man, and I had to jump outta the last car, the guy was getting weird with me, I guess I better get used to that…”

It sounded like Joe was sobbing. Or maybe just too tired to even talk. Something was really wrong.

“What's up?”

“It's bad, Travis. Really bad. Can you come and get me?”

“I don't have any wheels, man. My uncle won't be home for hours.”

“Oh, don't tell your uncle. Don't tell anybody, man.”

“Hold on.”

Travis ran to the kitchen window. Casey's Jeep was parked by the barn.

“Listen, I think I can get there.” He paused. “How bad?”

“The twins are dead.” Joe's voice sounded flat. Flat and old.

“Orson killed them. And I helped him.”

Travis felt so spacey. For a second he thought he was going to drop the phone. He didn't ask if this was some kind of sick joke.

“Stay there. I'll get a ride.”

“Okay,” Joe said, and hung up.

“I need to borrow your Jeep.”

Casey looked up from her record books. “I don't think—what's wrong?”

“Just for a couple of minutes—to go to the Quik Trip.”

“Hey, this is some nicotine fit.”

Travis wanted to smack her across the room, but she said quickly, “What is it?”

“I need to pick up a guy at the Quik Trip, he hitched this far, it's real important—you drive if you want, but let's go, okay?”

She got to her feet, looking at her watch. “I've got a lesson … what the hell, they've been late for me—”

She drove even fast enough to suit him, raced down to the highway like she did across the fields, chasing the Star Runner. Travis gripped his seat, too scared to think. He could think later, when Joe told him what had happened—the twins dead?

He could remember the last time he'd seen them, the night before his big fight with Stan, they were working on the Trans Am, he was sitting on the washing machine in their garage watching them, drinking Pepsi because their mom was home. He remembered how pale they looked under garage light, skinny, Mike under the hood and Billy laughing at whatever Travis was saying. He'd been lying extravagantly about something, he couldn't remember what, they wouldn't allow smoking in the garage, they thought they were such hotshot mechanics…

Joe was sitting on the curb in front of the Quik Trip. He almost fell as he got up, and limped to the Jeep. To Travis he seemed like someone stumbling in his sleep, exhausted by a nightmare he couldn't awake from. Travis was stunned. Joe was thinner, dirtier, and older. And he knew these changes were recent—for the first time he could believe stories he'd heard about people turning gray overnight.

He jumped out of the Jeep to help him. Joe yelped when he grabbed his arm.

“Sorry, man,” he muttered, heaving himself into the front seat. “I think I tore some muscles or somethin'.”

He gazed at Casey.

“She's cool,” Travis said, hopping in back, and Casey proved it by not asking any questions, just speeding back to the barn.

In Travis's room Joe stretched out on the bed, not even taking his shoes off, staring straight up at the ceiling. Travis couldn't figure out what to do. In a little while Joe started shaking, and tears ran down his face, but he didn't even seem to notice, like this had happened so much he was used to it.

Travis went to the kitchen and poured out a couple of good shots of bourbon and dropped a handful of ice cubes in it. He'd worry about Ken later.

Joe pulled himself up into a half-sitting position, leaning back against the headboard. He gulped the bourbon like it was water—Travis realized he should have brought water to begin with, but Joe did quit shaking so much.

“Got anything to eat?”

Travis doubted it—he came up with a couple of cold weenies in stale buns, but Joe ate them without complaint, slowly, not bothering to wipe the streaking tears off his face.

“So what happened?” Travis asked finally. He dreaded knowing.

“The twins are dead.”

“Yeah. So how?”

“Orson killed them. Took a twenty-two, oh, God—”

Joe finished off his bourbon.

“He tried to make me shoot Mike, but I wouldn't. You think that might help, at my trial, that I didn't pull the trigger? I thought he was ready to kill me, too, and he still couldn't make me—”

“Start from the start,” Travis said.

Joe munched along on his hot dog, obviously rewinding his story in his mind, trying to decide where “start” was.

“We've been working for Orson,” he said—he meant himself and the twins, he wasn't used to the fact that they were past tense yet. “I wrote you that, or told you, right?”

Travis nodded.

“It wasn't dope,” Joe said. He didn't seem to know what to say next. “We were doing houses…”

Doing houses? thought Travis. Painting or something? He couldn't imagine Orson organizing house painting, or why it would cause him to kill someone. But he just let Joe work on his second bourbon, because he was remembering vividly how it felt to be scared like that.

“Robbing houses. Orson would scout neighborhoods and me and the twins would break into the houses he picked, you know how good they are with tools and stuff, it wasn't too hard, a lot of times I just stood lookout because they could get in small windows, we just took easy stuff, you know, Orson fenced it, he said people's insurance covered it, nobody was really getting hurt, and he paid us, you know, like for each job. If we got a lot of stuff it was more. He knew how to get rid of the stuff, so we just took whatever he gave us.”

Joe closed his eyes and sighed. Travis was sick with cold apprehension. Joe was in big, big trouble. And even in the middle of his terror for his friend came the selfish, unbidden thought: Thank God it's not me!

“I quit,” Joe said. “You think they'll believe me when I tell 'em I quit?”

His sad olive-brown eyes fixed on Travis, desperate for hope, but Travis couldn't even nod.

“We did this one house, we thought it was empty, but just as we were packing up the silver this old lady came in and started screeching—Billy shoved her and she fell, we ran out of there, she wasn't hurt because it was in the papers, but I got to thinkin' about Grandma, what if somebody shoved her, old ladies break bones real easy, you know. And I didn't want to do this anymore and I quit. The twins said they quit too.” He sighed. “But they didn't. They did one more job and didn't tell Orson.”

Travis's mind raced around and around. Ken could help him, he knew the law, he could … And at the same time he told himself over and over, it couldn't have happened to
him
. Oh, no. Suppose he had stayed at home, had been hanging out with them, he'd never have done anything so dumb. Robbing houses and … He'd never have been so dumb.