The Scarred Man (2 page)

    There had always been two problems that stood in the way-time and money. Now we had both. It remained to be seen if we still had the heart. From the way her eyes lit up when I made the proposal I knew we had.

    

    

    The Honda had breathed its last. It wheezed to a stop and quit.

    "She may just be clogged." I said without much conviction. "I'll check the gas line."

    "Do that, love." She had taken off her helmet and was shaking out her dark glossy hair. She walked over to the side of the road and lay down in the coarse saw grass.

    "Look out for snakes," I said. "They're supposed to be thick in this kind of country."

    She laughed and shook her head.

    Along with everything else I did not much like the look of the sky. Greasy-looking sausages of black were building up to the westward. The breeze had died, and it was too hot and still. With all of that, I could not quite account for my feeling of depression and anxiety. So we would leave the damned bike. We would walk. It would rain and we would get wet. We would dry out again. At least it would be warm.

    Or would it?

    Conceivably that black stuff to the northwest was the advance guard of a cold front. In these interior sections of low ground, it could get down to the thirties on a snappy night. All we had were our light cotton jackets.

    Stacey was watching me. "What are you worried about?" she asked.

    "Nothing," I lied.

    "Something always happens, you know that."

    "Sure."

    "Oh, I don't know what's the matter with you," she said. "What are you so glum about? Now get on with it and fix that fool machine."

    So I did. At the expense of a little skin I managed to work the plastic gas line loose. Plenty of gas at both ends. Too simple of course. Probably the plug. It is almost always something electrical with these little beasts. Feed them plenty of clean plugs and they will run forever. And if you don't have a fresh one, clean the old. But how do you get the damn thing loose without tools?

    Stacey was asleep with her head on her arm. I strolled over to the canal in search of inspiration. Something big and dark switched its tail at me and ruffled the black water. The thought of snakes had given me an idea. If I could get something thick and ropey such as a heavy vine around the head of the plug, I might be able to get a grip on it. Since the plug was slightly recessed it would not be easy, but it would be worth a try. When the metal cooled it would shrink, and if I could just find something to start it with, I might be able to work it loose. It is man's ability to improvise that distinguishes him from the apes. That and his sense of humor, or so they say. The apes have yet to be heard from.

    There was a heavy parasitic vine of some kind trailing from the oaks among the Spanish moss. By teetering nervously out over the water, I managed to get a grip on it and slash off a foot or so with my little pocket knife. Whenyl got back to the road, Stacey still slept. She had confidence in her stalwart captain. And why not? Aren't all Americans born mechanics? Can't they fix anything? Like that time with the First Marine Division. It was twenty below zero in Korea that winter, and Captain William Shaw, USMCR, along with a hundred thousand other bewildered young Americans, was out for a stroll in the brisk weather. He had found the busted jeep by the side of the road and had told himself: It's perfectly okay, Americans can fix anything; any fool knows that. So he had stared down into the machine's frozen guts for a while, and tinkered with this and that, and cranked his arm half off, and had finally given it up and started walking 250 miles through the snow and the Chinese army. Since that time he had been highly suspicious of his ability to fix anything.

    I shrugged off the memory of that distant war and concentrated on the vine. About a quarter of an inch of octagonal metal at the base of the plug rose above the recess. I wrapped a few inches of the vine around it and tugged. It slipped off of course and did the same thing the next ten times. By the eleventh time the vine was pretty well shredded, but that very fact seemed to assist in gaining a purchase. I could have sworn it moved. I tried it again, but this time the vine snapped in half and I cursed softly under my breath. There wasn't enough left to bother with, and I had to go back to the canal for another chunk of the stuff. I was racing against darkness now and a little leery of falling into the black water. I found the vine more by touch than sight. As I reached it my foot slipped, and I went in up to the knee. I heaved on the vine and got myself out again in a hurry. The thought of what might be waiting for me below the surface was not too pleasant. Squadrons of mosquitoes were zeroing in on my face, hands, and neck.

    In the darkness, I worked too hard with the little knife and felt the blade snap when I was only halfway through the vine. I cursed again. There was still the tiny nail file but I had to save that for the electrodes. This, I told myself, is what the good lord gave you teeth for. Trying to ignore the attacks of the insects, I chewed away on the tough stuff. It was singularly bitter. At last I got a chunk off and lumbered back through the blackness to the road.

    I lit a match and in its quick glare wrapped the vine around the plug. This time it came easily enough. I unscrewed it and examined the electrodes. They were black with oil and carbon. I had to spread them a little to get the file between them. When I was down to clean bare metal, I cautiously reinserted the plug, praying that I would not have to go through the whole procedure again. I kicked the starter and the engine caught at once.

    Stacey sat up and said, "So you fixed it after all."

    "Mmm."

    "Any trouble?"

    "A piece of cake."

    She pulled on her helmet while I flicked on the light. It was not much of a light, but it would have to do. She got on behind and put her arms around me and yawned sleepily against my shoulder. There were lights a mile or two back. Son of a gun. After all that we get a car. But I was wrong, it wasn't a car. There were three of them, three helmeted figures on enormous bikes. The huge choppers went by with a roar of exhausts that made me feel as if I had been caught in the wake of a 747. A spray of dust and pebbles mingled with the stink of castor oil shot back into my face.

    Stacey giggled into my ear. "Go, man, go! Let's rumble!"

    Their tail lights were already disappearing around the bend. Arrogant punks, I thought sourly. Put all that horsepower between their legs and they think they're the kings of the bloody road.

    Half blinded by the dust, I throttled down while the little yellow pencil of light tried to pierce the fog. Something out of a horror movie appeared suddenly in the road and waved a claw at me. It was a giant landcrab with a dozen others behind it. They glared angrily at me as we swerved to go on by. The first drops of rain stung my face. Our little outing into the countryside was becoming more nightmarish with every passing moment.

    I was going flat out-a walloping 35 miles an hour-with the blackness flicking away on either side and the wind driving icy pencils of moisture into my eyes. Stacey clung tighter. I was conscious of the soft pressure of her breasts against my shoulder blades. We zipped around a curve and then a straightaway of a mile or two and another curve beyond that. Suddenly, with no warning of any kind, the road ahead seemed to dissolve. Glare of headlights blazing straight into my eyes. In the fraction of a second before I lost control I had just time enough to realize what had happened-the three helmeted punks on the choppers had lain in wait for us around the bend and were now giving us the full treatment.

    I was trying to slow down and steer out of it all at the same time, but it was hopeless. I put up one hand to shield my eyes, and at that moment the loose gravel on the shoulder caught us, and we bounced solidly against a log or chunk of coral and went over. Stacey screamed. I felt my helmet go flying through the air as my head hit the ground.

    Drops of rain on my face. Head splitting. Stink of something burning. Then a terrific wave of pain radiating up from my right leg and the knowledge that it was I who was on fire. I was lying on my side with the Honda across my thigh, and the hot exhaust pipe eating its way through the calf of my leg. The lights still had me pinned. I managed to shove my bike away and splayed the fingers of one hand to shield my eyes.

    "Stacey!" I shouted. "Stacey! are you all right!"

    There was no answer but the sighing of the wind. Then a man's voice said, "She's over here, Pops."

    I turned toward the sound and saw, a little off to one side of the dazzling circle of light, a gigantic faceless figure. I could make out a helmet and black leather jacket and nothing in between. My blood ran cold until I realized he was wearing a dark plastic visor pulled down over his face. Stacey was on her knees in front of him facing me. He had one of her arms twisted up behind her back, and his other hand was clamped over her mouth. I could see her eyes wide with fright, and as she struggled he twisted her arm tighter. Her eyes tightened with the pain. Her shirt had been ripped open down to her waist and her breasts were exposed.

    I started toward him. There was no time to ask myself what I would do when I got there. All I knew was that if I could get my hands on the sonofabitch I would kill him.

    The voice from behind the visor seemed to belong more to a robot than a man. The tone was scraggy and muffled. But the words were real enough, and I can hear them to this day.

    "Better stay where you are, Pops. You can have a good view of the show. We're just gonna fuck your little chick, is all."

    I had not done any fighting since Korea, and for the past year, with the exception of tennis weekends and a lit-tie skiing, I had been leading a comparatively sedentary life. All the same I was not exactly a pushover. I was big enough to have played two years as a linebacker at Dartmouth until I came up with a busted knee cartilage, and I had always enjoyed contact sports. The marines had taught me a fair amount of judo and hand-to-hand combat, some of which I still remembered. In addition, I had the best motivation in the world; he had twisted Stacey around and forced her head down against the bulging crotch of his greasy jeans.

    In my concentration on the man in front of me I had forgotten the other riders. They came at me now from either side. They had unbuckled the chains they wore around their waists and carried the heavy links dangling from their right hands. One of them was about my size, and the other was thin and wiry, hardly more than a kid I guessed, although it was impossible to tell what lay behind the shiny plastic visor.

    The thin one giggled. They were probably all high on something. Easy riders. Good clean fun and games. In the little time left to me I decided to take the big one first. Sensing my shift of attention in his direction, he made a backhanded swipe with the chain. I ducked under it and heard the thing whistle past my ear. Because I could not read his eyes or anticipate his next move there was nothing to do but come up fast with my right shoulder into his belly. The move seemed to surprise him. I suppose he had expected me either to run or to get down and pray when I saw the two of them coming at me. Anyway he went down hard with the concussed sound of a dropped melon, and I was on top of him reaching for the chain which hung loose in his hand when the entire right side of my body dissolved in a flaming sea of pain. I heard myself howl. Even when I had been shot in the back by the Chinese sniper outside Wonsan I had not howled like that. The pain was repeated as the one behind me clubbed me again with the chain, this time over the face and neck. Waves of paralysis and nausea ran through my shuddering body. My whole right side was as useless as if it had been amputated. I rolled on the ground in the fetal position. The big one got up and kicked me in the ribs. I hardly felt it.

    Waves of pain washed over me. I was barely conscious of Stacey's screams and of a strangely muffled voice that said, "Ease off. No use to kill the sonofabitch."

    For a while I knew nothing. Then I was vaguely aware of a blaze of light and shadowy forms on the ground. They had Stacey down and she was naked. One of the helmeted forms was kneeling on her arms, another held her legs. I tried to crawl toward her but the blackness rolled over me again.

    When I came out of it the second time, she was still on the ground, and an immense form was kneeling between her legs. He had lowered his pants, and I could see his naked pallid buttocks. I tried to concentrate on what it was, tried to tell myself that what was happening was part of some awful dream and that if I could force myself to sit up I would come out of it and be mercifully awake. Wake up, I told myself. Wake up and get out of all this. I tried once more and did succeed in fact in raising my head a few inches off the ground before I passed out for good.

    

    

    A white room. Muted voices. Thin odor of antiseptic. Drugged weariness. I raised one hand to my cheek and felt it encased in scar tissue. Dead to the touch. Dead all over for that matter.

    "Remember, Sergeant. Five minutes. No more."

    "Five should do it, Doc. Mr. Shaw, can you hear me, Mr. Shaw?"

    I raised my hand again. Searching fingers. It wasn't scar tissue after all; I was almost totally encased in gauze bandages.

    "Mr. Shaw?"

    "Yes?" The voice was scratchy, clearly not my own.

    "My name is Krentz, Mr. Shaw. Sergeant Krentz of the Highway Patrol."

    I didn't say anything. Still convinced that I had died, I was only faintly surprised to find a sergeant of the Highway Patrol at the gates of heaven. Possibly on the Day of Reckoning one had to account for old traffic violations.