Allegiance: A Jackson Quick Adventure (27 page)

I let Charlie, or Judy – or whatever her name was – get close to me. Her beauty was certainly what had caught my attention. What was it that kept me interested? What was it that kept her from killing me? Was there something darker we both sensed in each other that subconsciously drew us to one another?

“You really had no idea who she was?” George puts the phone in the center console next to the 9MM.

“Apparently not,” I admit. “She played me from the beginning. I was a mark, a target, whatever snipers call their prey. The only thing she didn’t do was put a bullet in my head.”

***

It was a Saturday morning. My dad woke me up from a dead sleep.

“Jackson,” he whispered. “Get up. I’ve got a surprise.”

I was groggy when I stumbled downstairs in a T-shirt, jeans, and a pair of brand new Saucony running shoes. They were ugly but comfortable. At the kitchen table was a glass of orange juice and a plate of French toast. My dad was at the coffee pot. My mom was frying some eggs.

“What’s the surprise?” I asked, plopping myself into a chair.

“Your dad has a special outing planned for the two of you.” My mom was smiling. “A guy thing. I’m not invited.”

“You can come,” I managed with a mouth full of French toast shoved into one cheek. “Whatever it is.”

“No, she can’t.” My dad eased up behind her at the cooktop and kissed her neck. “Besides, I am sure she has her day all planned out already.”

“Maybe,” she said coyly. The two of them were good parents. They loved each other a lot.

“What is it?” I took a swig of juice.

“You’ll see when we get there,” my dad winked, and finished sweetening the coffee he’d poured into a stainless thermos. “Your mom made lunch. Everything is loaded into the truck. Whenever you’re finished eating, we can take off.”

It took me less than a second to shove the rest of the plateful into my mouth, drown it with juice, and bolt for the door. I ran back to kiss my mom and shuttled back to the truck.

We were on the road for what seemed like forever, but it was probably only an hour or so. My dad swung the wheel to the right and we turned off of the highway onto a narrow gravel road darkened by the thick canopy of tall pines overhead. The rocks and pine needles crunched under the thick, oversized tires on my dad’s Toyota Tundra.

“Where are we going?”

“That would only be the fiftieth time you’ve asked in the last thirty miles,” he laughed and patted my knee. “You’ll see when we get there.”

The gravel road wound to the left and into a clearing. There was some wire fencing extending across the field, from one end to the other and a small iron gate blocked the road. My dad slowed the truck to a stop.

“We’re here!” He adjusted the faded Los Angeles Raiders ball cap on his head. “Hop out.”

I sat there for a moment, seatbelt still strapping me to the seat. I panned the horizon. It was grass, trees, rocks, and more trees.

“C’mon Jackson,” my dad called from behind the truck. He’d dropped the tailgate and was fumbling with a thick canvas tarp. “I need your help back here buddy!”

I hopped out, my new shoes plopping onto the gravel, and met my dad at the tailgate. He’d peeled back the tarp to reveal a gold mine of artillery. There were three rifle bags, a crossbow, a few boxes of ammunition, a quiver of composite arrows, a backpack, and a large red Igloo cooler.

I looked up at my dad who was already looking at me. We both knew, without saying a word, what an awesome day we were about to have.

“I need you to roll the cooler and carry the backpack,” he said as we lowered the cooler onto the ground. “I’ll carry the weapons and the ammunition.”

He led me past the gate and across the field. Neither of us said much as we trekked past the buzz of dragonflies and waist high goldenrod. The backpack clanged against my back and every few hundred yards I’d switch the arm pulling the heavy cooler.

We’d walked maybe a half mile when the clearing widened to a small lake. The brush melted into clay and dirt along the edge of the water. There was a small wooden picnic table, the remains of a campfire, and some outcroppings of rocks.

“What is this place?” I asked, dropping the cooler and thunking the backpack onto the picnic table.

“A friend of the family owns it,” he told me, looking across the lake, which stretched for maybe an acre in either direction. “My dad brought me here when I was about your age.”

“Why didn’t we bring the truck all the way here?” I wiped my forehead with the bottom of my shirt. It was getting warm.

“Aw,” he laughed. “We could’ve. I thought the hike would add to the suspense.”

“I did kinda think we were trespassing,” I told him.

“Trespassing?” Where’d you come up with that?”

“The Lord’s prayer,” I told him as though it were obvious. “You know, ‘As we forgive those who trespass against us’?”

“I know it,” he said, unzipping one of the rifle bags. “It’s always good advice. To forgive and we’d like to be forgiven. Right?”

“I guess.”

I watched him pull my Henry rifle from the bag. He tousled my hair with his right hand while pulling out a box of ammunition with his left.

"Here's what I love about your rifle, Jackson," he said as he started loading the gun. "I can get 22 of these small .22 short bullets into the tube-fed magazine. That's a lot of ammo."

Dad finished loading it and handed it to me before he grabbed the backpack and walked toward the rocks. I followed him to the rocks and the edge of the lake.

He pulled out five tin cans from the bag. "These are your targets. Try to pop each of them off the rocks." He set them side by side: crushed tomato, sweet corn, green beans, another crushed tomato, and a frijoles negros.

"Where do you want me to shoot from?" I asked, the Henry slung over my shoulder like a continental soldier.

"Go back about twenty yards. Next to the campfire." He checked the cans and joined me by the ashen circle. It smelled like burnt marshmallows.

"Whenever you're ready," he said, stepping behind me.

I turned to my side, left shoulder forward, and spread my feet. With my left hand I cranked the lever.

Click
!

I pulled the Henry to my right shoulder and tilted my head to the right to sight the crushed tomatoes. I slowly pressed into the trigger.

Pow
!

By the time the rifle kick into my shoulder the can clanged off of the rock.

"Nice," said my dad. "Now I want you to hit the other four in rapid succession."

"What does that mean?" I asked, cranking the lever again. "Like fast?"

He nodded. I nodded.

Aim. Pull.
Pow
!
Clang
! Corn

Crank. Aim. Pull.
Pow
!
Clang
! Green Beans.

Crank. Aim. Pull.
Pow
!
Clang
! Tomatoes.

Crank. Aim. Pull.
Pow
!
Clang
! Frijoles Negros.

I turned to look at my dad. He was looking at his Timex.

"Twelve seconds," he said. "Incredible!"

"Why were you timing it?" I asked. I had the Henry pointed at the ground now.

"Just checking," he said and winked.

An hour and two reloads later, the cans were peppered with holes. I hadn't missed a single shot.

My dad pulled the red cooler over to the picnic table and flipped the lid open. The plastic hinges creaked and he dug to the bottom, pulling out two cans of Dr. Pepper with his right hand. He plopped them onto the edge of the table with a pair of sandwiches and a big bag of Lay’s potato chips.

“Lunch,” he said. “Then something really cool.”

We talked about music and classic television in between mouths full of peanut butter, raspberry jam, and white bread. My sandwich was cut into two triangles, my dad’s in rectangles. I don’t know why my mom cut them differently, but she did. She paid attention to the details.

I finished my Dr. Pepper and asked for another. My dad suggested too much caffeine wasn’t good for a sharpshooter, so I swigged a bottle of water instead.

“You ready?” he asked, straddling the table’s attached bench.

“Sure. What’s next?”

“A crossbow.”

“Cool! I hopped up, eager to try out the new weapon.

My dad opened up one of the rifle bags and pulled out what looked like a rifle. There was no barrel. Instead, at the front of the rifle, is a bow with cables extending from either side.

From the cooler, he pulled a bag of big yellow apples and carried them to rocks. He set five of them up in a row, almost exactly like he’d arranged the cans. He walked back with the bag in one hand and an apple in the other. He was chewing on a large bite.

“So,” he said, still chomping as he picked up the matte black weapon, “this front part of the bow is called the stirrup. You point that at the ground, rest it, and load the bow from that position.”

He placed it nose first into the ground and slipped his foot into the stirrup. Grabbing the string with both hands, he pulled it back until it caught. Another bite of the apple and he tossed it into the cooler.

“What I did was pull the string into the catch. That locks the tension on the string. This front part you’d call a bow is actually called a lathe.”

I nodded, my eyes wide and locked on the bow.

“Now what do you think this is called?” he asked, holding up a shiny silver arrow with red feathers.

“An arrow?”

“Close,” he said. “But no. It’s called a bolt. When you load it into the bow, you need to always do it at the same position. There’s a little groove here it sits in. See it?”

I nodded again.

“Now before you lift it up, you check the auto and manual safeties here,” he pointed to them, “then you can aim and fire.”

He picked up the bow, held the butt to his shoulder and aimed, his left eye squinting.

Thooop
!

Miss. The bolt clanged off the rocks beneath the apples. My dad opened his left eye and smiled at me.

“You get the point,” he said. “Now it’s your turn.”

I fired five bolts. I hit five apples.

“You’ve got a gift,” my dad said.

My dad loved me. Both of my parents did. But I don’t think I’d ever seen him beam with such pride. He seemed to skip, float almost, as he went to retrieve the bolts.

I
had
a
gift
.
I
was
a
natural
.

It was a good day.

***

Across I-10, in front of the gas station where we’ve stashed George’s rental car, is a black Lincoln Town Car limousine. Exhaust puffing from the tailpipe tells me it’s running.

“Who is that?” George asks, nodding toward the car. Its rear windows are illegally dark.

“Dunno,” I say, easing across the intersection and into the parking lot next to the car.

“Pickle?”

“I don’t think so.” I put the car in park and turn it off. The keys are still in the ignition. “They would have killed us already.” We’re perpendicular to the Town Car on the driver’s side. I don’t see anyone in the front seat.

“Or tried,” George laughs nervously.

The rear driver’s side window rolls down and beyond it is a familiar face.

The Saint.

“Who is that?” George looks at the man in the car and back at me.

“It’s the guy who drugged me, kidnapped me, tortured me, drugged me again, and then saved my life.”

“Seriously?” George rubbernecks between the two of us again. “How did he find us?”

“He has a way of doing that,” I huff and get out of the car. “What do you want?” I shout in no particular direction as I round the front of my car toward the Lincoln. I’m carrying the 9MM.

“You look like bloody hell,” The Saint says from his comfortable seat. “Did somebody get hurt?”

I look down at my shirt. It’s a Rorschach test of blood spatter. Disgusting.

“Why are you here?” I asked again, approaching the window. “Where’s your driver?”

“Well,” says The Saint, “to your first question, I am here to offer my assistance. To your second, he’s in the store getting a drink and using the facilities.”

“What kind of assistance?” I can feel George over my shoulder.

“Why don’t you gather your belongings and get inside the car? There’s plenty of room.”

“I don’t know about this,” George whispers loudly enough for The Saint to hear. “Can you trust him?”

“My dear George,” says The Saint, his eyes shifting to the reporter, “you cannot trust anyone implicitly. There are degrees of trust, are there not? Right now I don’t see anyone else offering you assistance.”

“Where would you take us?” I ask.

“To my plane.”

George is considering the degrees of trust. “What plane?”

“I have a small little aircraft,” The Saint says. “You can’t carry your munitions through security at a commercial airport. You might best be served on a charter flight.”

“All right,” I say, “we’ll go. But you need to make two stops.”

“Clearly,” The Saint feigns magnanimousness. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

I pop the trunk and grab my backpacks and Charlie’s duffel. George has the phones and the revolver. He slides into the car while I dump my belongings into The Saint’s trunk. I slam it shut and join George in the rear facing seats opposite our host.

“What about my rental?” George asks.

“We’ve got bigger problems than returning that car,” I say. “For instance, there’s a trail of dead bodies between here and the observatory.”

“Including the one you dumped,” George snaps back.

The Saint pulls a cut crystal glass from the cup holder to his right and swirls a caramel colored liquid before raising the glass to his lips.

“A body? Dumped?” The Saint’s eyes widen with his smile. “Do tell, gentlemen!” Neither of us say anything.

He swallows hard and rests the glass on his right knee. “How rude of me! Would either or you care for a drink? This is a Glennfiddich 1937.” He winks at George. “I’m more than happy to share.”

“Must be pricey,” George says, his eyes on the knee-balanced glass in The Saint’s right hand. “Only bottle in the world, and all.”