Unspeakable (4 page)

Hell of a new experience, this was. He'd never run across a deaf woman before. Or one who had such an enormous burr up her ass.

Turning, he asked her to start the engine and rev it, which she did. Jack's knowledge of cars wasn't extensive, but this diagnosis was elementary. Something was blocking the fuel line. He set to work.

David took up a post just beneath his elbow. Obviously wishing to impress Jack, he boasted,

"We have a whole ranch."

"I see that."

"Just the three of us. Mom, Grandpa, and me. I'd like to have a brother or sister, but Mom says I'm a handful all by myself and anyway you can't have a baby without a daddy, she says. Do you like peach pie, Jack? My mom makes good peach pie and Grandpa makes vanilla ice cream and I get to sit on the tub while he's turning the crank, and the ice cream's good on peach pie or just plain. Can you swim? Grandpa says when he has time he's gonna teach me to swim, 'cept Mom's afraid of cottonmouths in the river. We've got a river, and I've caught fish before, and after Grandpa and me took their guts out Mom cooked 'em and we had 'em for supper. I can already do a face float and that's the first step to swimming, a face float. Maybe you could see my room. I've got a Dallas Cowboys poster on my closet door. Do you have a little boy?"

"No, I never had a little boy. Or a little girl either." As he removed a filter from the fuel line, he smiled down at the boy.

The woman was hovering nearby. She signed something. Looking chagrined, David reported,

"She says I'm probably wearing out your ears with so much—I didn't get the last."

"Chatter?" Jack ventured.

"Maybe," David said. "Sometimes Grandpa calls me a chatterbox."

"I don't mind if you talk. I like having company."

"We never have company."

"How come?" Jack addressed the question to David, although he was looking at the woman.

"I think it's 'cause my mom's deaf or something."

"Hmm." Jack put the filter to his mouth and blew into it hard. Then he replaced it and motioned for her to try the ignition again. She got in and turned the key. After she pumped the accelerator several times, the car started.

Jack lowered the hood and dusted off his hands. "There you go." He replaced his sunglasses and hat. "Shouldn't give you any more problem. You had a piece of grit stuck in your filter."

"You sure are smart."

"Not too smart, David. It happened on my truck once. Cost me fifty bucks for a mechanic to blow out the speck." Turning to the boy's mother, he said, "I'd like to see Mr. Corbett now, please."

"Can I show him where Grandpa's at, Mom?"

She shook her head no, and motioned for David to get into the car.

"Point me in the right direction and I'll find him," Jack said.

"It's that way, past those trees," David told him. "But I'll take you. It's not far." David's mother stamped her foot to get his attention. Her fingers moving with the speed of light, she issued a parental order. "Aw, Mom. Please. Why can't I stay here with Grandpa and Jack? I hate going to the dumb grocery store."

With her arm held shoulder high and straight as an arrow, she pointed an imperious index finger at the passenger door of the car.

Jack patted David's shoulder. "Better mind her."

"Will you still be here when we get back?"

"We'll see."

"I hope so. Well, bye, Jack."

"Bye."

David trudged around the rear of the car. As he passed his mother, he ducked his head so that she couldn't read his lips and muttered, "You're a mean ol' mom." It was all Jack could do to contain his grin, but he soberly tipped the brim of his hat. "Ma'am." She climbed behind the wheel and closed the door. After securing her seat belt and making sure that David had done the same, she turned to Jack. Through the open car window she signed something that he supposed was " Thank you."

He watched them drive away. When they reached the main road, they turned toward town. The wrought-iron letters bridging the main drive spelled out CORBETT CATTLE RANCH. Not very elaborate or imaginative, Jack thought, but certainly informative.

He turned to gaze at the house. It was a neat two-story, white frame structure with dark green shutters accenting the windows. Ferns on stands stood sentinel on either side of the front door. Pots of blooming flowers sat on the edge of each of three steps leading down from the deep porch. Functional columns supported the roof above it. It was a pleasant-looking place, but nothing distinguished it from thousands of other such ranch houses scattered across the south central states.

Jack crossed the yard and went through a gate, walked past a large barn and a corral where several horses were eating hay from a trough and whisking flies with their tails. Beyond the corral, he opened the gate into a pasture, where he kept on the lookout for cow chips as he moved through the grass.

He thought of a countless number of reasons why he should retrace his steps to his truck and drive away.

He had heard the news of the prison break all the way down in Corpus Christi. Even though it had taken place in Arkansas, it was big news across the region. Though most viewers had probably listened with half an ear and readily dismissed it, the story had galvanized him. Almost before he realized it, he was speeding toward Blewer. He had arrived at midnight and checked into a local motel.

He wasn't particular when it came to lodging, and the room was comfortable enough, but he'd lain awake the remainder of the night, watching the John Wayne Flick Festival on a cable station and arguing with himself about the compulsion that had caused him to abandon a good job and come here.

Of course he'd been doing that all his adult life—moving at the drop of a hat. He was a loner, an adventurer, a drifter, having no ties to anything or anybody. All his worldly possessions he could carry in his truck. He went where he wanted and stopped when he took a notion. If he liked the place, he stayed. When he tired of it, he left. He had a driver's license and a Social Security number, but no bank account or credit card. He lived on cash earned by doing what interested him at the time.

At dawn, just as Rio Bravo was ending, he'd gotten up, showered, shaved, and climbed into his truck. While sipping a cup of good coffee at the doughnut shop across the highway from the motel, he reached a compromise decision: It was a bad idea, and risky to boot, but he was going to do it anyhow.

He had to do it.

Over the years he had come this way many times, just passing through, taking a curious look around but never stopping. Whenever in the area, he drove past the Corbett place and wondered about the people who lived inside the wrought-iron gate. But his wonder had never been so urgent that he stopped to inquire.

When this was the last place on the planet he should be, why did he feel it necessary to be here?

Carl Herbold's prison break, sure. But that had only been the catalyst. There was something inside himself that kept bringing him back here at intervals over the years. He had tried to forget the connection, tried to outrun it, but it always overtook him. More specifically, he carried it with him wherever he went.

His travels had exposed him to different religions. He had sampled peyote with a shaman from one of the tribes in Arizona who believed the gods spoke through drug-induced visions. He had caddied one summer for a golfing rabbi who had talked to him about God's covenants and the promised Messiah. He had discussed the gospel with a group of Christian seminary students at an outdoor rock concert.

All had believed wholeheartedly that something greater than themselves was directing their destiny. Something greater than themselves was at least helping them choose the right path. Jack didn't know which religion was valid, or if any of them were. He couldn't imagine a God who was omniscient enough to create the cosmos only to direct the lives of men with such petulance and caprice. The reason for natural disasters escaped him. He didn't comprehend why bad things happened to good folk, or why mankind was forced to suffer pestilence and famine and war. He wasn't so sure about the whole concept of redemption, either. But he knew that sin was real enough. And so was the guilt that went with it. Call it providence, or fate, or God, or just plain conscience. Something—a will greater than his own—had compelled him to leave his present circumstances and come here when he heard the news that Carl Herbold was on the loose.

What would happen next was anybody's guess. Jack himself didn't know. Even as he'd driven beneath the iron arch he hadn't known what he was going to say or do when he got here. He had no concrete plan. He certainly hadn't counted on meeting a woman and child in the driveway of Delray Corbett's place. From this point forward, he would roll with the punches, react to events as they occurred.

In any event, the die would be cast seconds from now.

Spotting the rancher down on one knee struggling with a contrary strand of barbed wire, Jack hesitated only a moment before cupping his hands and calling out, "Mr. Corbett?"

CHAPTER FIVE

S
tartled to hear his name, Delray Corbett turned and saw Jack walking toward him. Reluctantly, he came to his feet. He stood about five feet ten inches, a man in his midsixties, with a comfortable middle-aged softness around his waist, stocky legs, and a stern countenance. His displeasure upon seeing a stranger in his pasture was evident. Jack tried not to let the man's frown discourage him.

"Mr. Corbett," he said again, extending his hand. "Jack Sawyer." Markedly unrushed, Corbett removed his right glove and shook Jack's hand in an obligatory way. From beneath the bill of his dozer cap he regarded Jack with unfriendly eyes. Jack tipped his head toward the fence. "Heard some steers knocked down a section of your fence."

"Where'd you hear that?"

"From your grandson." He pointed to Corbett's forearm, where a long nasty scratch was still bleeding slightly. "Catch some barbed wire?"

Corbett made a disinterested swipe at the scratch. "It's nothing. Where did you run into my grandson?"

"Up at the house."

"You tried to talk to them?" he asked angrily. "Damn it. I already told you people I don't know anything. Leave us alone."

"Pardon? Look, Mr. Corbett, I don't know who you're mistaking me for." That was a white lie. Delray Corbett would be among the first to be contacted about Carl Herbold's prison break. Apparently law enforcement agencies had already been in touch with him. He was resentful of the intrusion. Or worried about the repercussions. Both were valid reactions.

"Whatever you're thinking, you're wrong," Jack assured him. "I only talked to your family because your daughter-in-law was having some trouble with her car." Corbett glanced toward the house with concern.

Jack said, "It didn't amount to anything. Just some grit in the fuel-line filter. She's on her way now."

Corbett's eyes moved back to him. "Nobody sent you?"

"No."

"Sorry."

"It's okay."

Still wary, Corbett removed a handkerchief from the rear pocket of his jeans and took off his cap long enough to mop perspiration from his face. He had very dark hair, barely threaded with gray.

"Did Anna give you something?"

Anna. Her name was Anna. Busy assimilating that information, Jack didn't catch the rest of what Corbett had said. "Come again?"

"Did you come out here to get some money from me? For the time and trouble you spent fixing her car," he added, when it became obvious that his meaning hadn't clicked. Jack replied with a terse "No, sir. I was glad to help her out. I came here to speak with you." Corbett's guard went up again. "You selling something?"

"You could say so."

"Well then you've wasted your time. I can't think of a thing I need."

"How about me?"

"Huh?"

"I need a job. You need a hand. My services are for sale."

Corbett looked as though he were waiting for the punch line. Finally he said, "You're serious?"

"As death and taxes. I could start right now by helping you string that fence." The rancher moved a few inches to his right, placing himself between Jack and the coiled strands of barbed wire, either to block them from Jack's view or to protect them from his interference; Jack couldn't tell. What was all too apparent was that Corbett didn't take his proposal at face value.

He responded with chilly politeness. "I don't think so, Mr. Sawyer. But thanks all the same." He returned his handkerchief to his pocket and his cap to his head and his attention to his chore.

"You haven't heard me out."

"I don't have a hand."

"That's obvious." The remark brought him around again, as Jack had hoped it would. "No offense, Mr. Corbett, but your place needs some work. Looks to me like this whole fence needs replacing, not just this section. That entails digging holes, setting posts—"

"I know what it entails," Corbett snapped.

"So you know it's too much work for one man, especially when daily chores have to be done, too. Your barn door is loose. That trough in the horse corral is about to collapse, and two of the horses need shoeing. That's just for starters. A place this size, it's more than even two men could do efficiently."