Black Helicopters (13 page)

“We should kill him,” says Bo, “for what he did.”

“No,” I say, “I’ve thought about it, and there is no good plan for killing him. Not right now, anyway. Later maybe, but not now. Not when we get back. He’s got to expect we might try, so he’ll be ready.”

I can see the thoughts crawling behind Bo’s eyes, crawling and squirming and hatching like mites and maggots. I can see them, and I know them because my own brain has been itching in the same way.

“Not now. He’s a person who knows people. If he turns up dead, some of the customers will remember you. When that happens, it will be just like he said. They will think you are dirty and the word will get around. Much as I hate it, killing Captain Nichols, that’s a thing we can’t do. We need a different plan.”

Bo is still not ready to think about anything but blood.

“What do we have for assets?” It is a direct question that has a right answer, no guessing. It requires thought. I can see Bo’s eyes move while he thinks to answer.

“We have the emergency cache. The truck. My gun.” I can tell he’s thinking about putting a bullet into Captain when he says that.

“What about money? The money you’ve been earning on the jobs? Is that on you?”

“Captain’s holding it. We had a ledger where we kept track. He gave me what I needed for operating expenses. I still got a little of that. The customers, they paid him. I never touched the money.” Bo can’t believe how stupid he’s been. I don’t need to mention it.

“The stuff we had, that’s all still in the bus?”

“Yeah. I never touched that. It’s still where we hid it the day we came down to the Captain’s. But right now, we don’t have the bus or anything inside it. And I don’t see how we can get that back unless we kill him.”

“Not the option,” I say. “How long do you figure we have before he knows we aren’t coming back?”

“A day, maybe,” says Bo. “We made real good time on the run. But the customers, he’s probably talked to them, so he knows we made the drop. If we don’t show up in a day, he’ll know something’s up.”

“Can we go back to where the bus was? We’ve got the emergency cache there. We could get that and then live out of the truck.” Even while I ask the question, I know that would be hard. The world’s just not full of food and comfort. It’s full of sagebrush, rocks, and weather.

“I don’t know if the Captain knows about that property or not,” says Bo.

“If we don’t know, then it’s not safe,” I say. “The one thing we have going for us is he doesn’t know, right now, this minute, where we are.” I look out the truck window as the wind rattles past.

“Valley, I think I do know a place where we could go. They’re customers, so the Captain knows about them, but — I don’t know. They treated me good. They trusted me when I brought the delivery. Gave me some food and beer. We even did some target practice together with the guns I brought. They were good guys. I just felt it. They were good.”

Trusting Bo’s gut might be the stupidest thing I ever do. It might even be one of the last things I ever do. But I’m going to do it. Because if they kill us, it will be both of us. If they kill us, it will be quicker than starving. If they kill us, I don’t have to see the Captain. I don’t have to see the Captain ever again.

There are three guys shooting hoops. The court is the road. The hoop is nailed to a tree that leans over the packed dirt and gravel. They don’t even stop the game until Bo opens the door of the truck and gets out.

“Hey, Joe!” The one holding the ball flings it at Bo. Bo claps it out of the air. I did not know my brother could do that.

“Hey, Dolph,” says Bo.

“Unexpected visit,” says Dolph. He’s bigger than Bo. His hands are empty; that puts Bo at a disadvantage, even if the disadvantage is only the second it takes to move the ball.

“Not work,” says Bo. “I wonder if I could talk to Wolf a minute.”

Dolph jerks his head slightly, and the other guys move until one is standing right by Bo. The other lines up with me; it would be a clear shot through the open door of the truck.

“Well, come on in, then.” Dolph smiles. “Who you got there with you?”

“This is my sister, Valley. Come out the truck, Valley,” says Bo.

I get out slow, and we all walk down the road a minute. Dolph stops and the rest of us do, too.

“It’s OK, Valley,” says Bo. “Just do like me.” He puts his hands on his head and stands wide. One of the guys pats him down. I feel hands on me, too, hands that go where they want and touch what they want. Hands that run up under my shirt and across my skin. Hands that slide up and down the inside of my legs. I don’t like it, but I don’t flinch.

“Wolf’s in the Quonset,” says Dolph. “We’ll all walk on over there and let him know you’re here.”

And then we walk through the trees to meet Wolf.

They take Bo inside and close the door, but I don’t go. I’m left outside with the guy who patted me down. I turn away from him, away from the door that closed behind Bo. I look down the hillside. I can see sunlight glinting on water through the open spaces between the trees. If I walked that way, would he stop me? Could I just walk there, to the water’s edge? Would the water kiss and bend around me and hold me while my heart went tick, tick, tick? Or would that be reason enough to shoot?

The stubborn birds are singing in the trees.

If they have a silent way of killing, it will be my turn soon.

When they have finished, the stubborn birds will still be singing in the trees.

But the door opens and Bo comes out smiling. The man with him is smiling, too. He is tall. Taller than Bo. Taller than Da.

“It’s good,” he says. And I believe him. “Dolph, show them where to park their truck.”

One of the other guys punches Bo in the shoulder. “Hey, dude, we got a bonfire meeting tonight. Stormy is going to be glad to see you again. Damn your eyes.”

“This is Valley,” says Bo.

“I’m Wolf,” the tall man says to me. Things he doesn’t say, but things that I see in the way the other men obey: I am the leader here. What I say goes. “Bo tells me you could use a couple hours’ sleep. So we’ll talk more later, tonight maybe, by the fire, or tomorrow. But for now, get some sleep.”

Those are easy orders to follow.

The fire is by the lakeshore. Bo is there now. He is one of the moving shapes, half bright, half dark. I’m not. I am here, at a distance, under the trees. I can watch from here, but I don’t shine or show against the light of the fire. I’m a shadow, I’m a tree, I’m a shadow of a tree.

“Why aren’t you there, with them?” It’s Wolf’s voice behind me, where I can’t hear so well. I wish now that I had stayed in the back of the truck, in the solid dark, instead of following along to watch Bo. My hand is on the little knife in my pocket.

“I’m not with them because I’m not one of them,” I say. I turn to face him, but the light of the bonfire is burned into my eyes and hovers where I look.

“You would be welcome,” Wolf says. “There’s plenty of beer.”

“I don’t need beer.”

“Humh? You don’t have to need it to enjoy it.” If I could see Wolf’s face, he would be smiling. I can hear a little bit of laughing in his words.

“I don’t enjoy it, either,” I say. “I don’t like the bubbles.”

“Here, then,” says Wolf. “This doesn’t have bubbles.” His hand touches my hand and puts a mug into it.

I think maybe it is cold coffee, but it smells wrong. When I sip, it is sharp on the back of my tongue, like the smell of pine pitch on a hot summer day, but it also tastes like berries and bitterness.

“My own elderberry wine,” says Wolf, “mixed with mead. Better than beer for you and me.”

We stand and watch the others by the fire, and we pass the cup back and forth. We are quiet in the shadows under the trees. I start to feel warm inside, from the wine. I watch Bo and the others. I watch how the sparks fly up when someone throws more wood on the fire. Wolf is standing close enough by my side that I can feel the heat his body makes, but he never touches me except to give and receive the cup we share.

Bo and I go to Wolf and Eva’s trailer right at 5:00 p.m., like she said to when she invited us. Eva is Wolf’s wife. Bo introduced us at the truck when she visited this morning. She was down by the fire last night, and so were her daughters, Wolf’s daughters, Stormy and Sky. They are a whole family.

When we walk past her truck, the engine is still ticking, making the little sounds the parts make when they cool. She must not have been home very long.

Bo climbs up the steps to the front door and knocks. Then he steps back down and waits. I start to think maybe we didn’t understand, because nobody is answering the door, but then I start to hear loud TV-commercial music coming from inside the trailer.

Bo steps up and knocks again, harder this time, with the side of his fist. It’s not polite to knock like that, but the person inside won’t hear it otherwise.

The door opens and it’s Eva. “Hey, kids,” she says. “Come on in.” She is holding a cigarette and a can of beer in one hand while she welcomes us in with the other. “I didn’t expect you so soon. Wolf and the girls, they’re always late. So I figure everybody’s late. Not you two, though.”

“Da taught us to be on time,” says Bo.

“That’s real polite,” says Eva. Now she’s got one hand for the beer and one for the cigarette. She punctuates her sentences by putting one or the other to her mouth.

Not just polite, I think, also important so a person doesn’t get blown up. Time matters. Da taught me that.

“Well, I’m glad you’re here,” Eva says. “Sit down. Sit down. Soon as Wolf and the girls get here, we’ll eat. I wanted to welcome you to the family; so we’ll be having a big family dinner together. You want a beer?”

“Yes, please,” says Bo.

Eva puts her own beer and cigarette down on the counter by the fridge. She pops the top on a cold one and hands it to Bo. I see the edge of the counter has lots of brown marks where cigarettes have been set down on it and forgotten, but this time she remembers; she picks it up and tucks it in her mouth. “What about you, honey? Thirsty? I think I got some ice tea back there somewhere if you want it.”

I shake my head.

“Change your mind, you let me know,” says Eva, then she walks over and settles into the couch beside Bo. “Relax,” she says. “Make yourself at home.” Then she picks up the TV remote, leans back, and puts her feet up on the coffee table so we know how to do that in her home.

“About time. I thought I said be home because we were going to have dinner,” says Eva when Stormy comes through the door. “Bo and Valley are here.”

Stormy makes a kissing face, maybe at Bo, then turns and heads down the hall.

“I’m calling Wolf,” Eva says in our general direction. “He probably lost track of time. He does that.” She walks over to the counter and digs around in a purse, but before she finds the phone, the door opens again. It’s Wolf.

“Let’s eat!” says Eva. “I picked us up a real dinner in town.” She pulls a cardboard bucket full of fried chicken out of a paper bag.

“Beer me, woman,” says Wolf.

“Always, babe,” says Eva while she opens the fridge. After she passes the can over, she yells, “Stormy, get your ass back here. Time to eat.”

Stormy comes back and sits beside Bo on the arm of the couch. She leans over and looks in the bucket of chicken, then she turns and takes the food right out of Bo’s hand. She holds the chicken bone in her right hand; with her left she pulls Bo’s hand to her mouth and licks the grease off his fingers. Bo smiles like that is perfectly polite. It is not.

“Where’s Sky?” says Eva.

Nobody answers, because, I guess, nobody knows.

“This is my office,” says Wolf. There are flags hanging on the wall behind a big computer desk. The closet doors are open, and I can see boxes full of cables and equipment in there. I guess having those things makes this an office. When they built the trailer, it was probably supposed to be a bedroom. If it were still a bedroom, then Sky and Stormy wouldn’t have to share, but I don’t think that matters much, since I gather neither of them actually sleeps here very often.

There are shelves along one wall: some books and a bunch of little things. I step closer to look: silver and black dragons with shiny crystal eyes, wizard guys with walking sticks — or magic sticks, whatever those are called — soldiers in grey uniforms, soldiers in blue, and, on horseback, valkyries.

“My chess sets,” says Wolf. And when he says that, it becomes obvious. I can see how they are ranked, eight pawns here, eight pawns there. Why one guy in uniform is a bishop and another a knight I do not know. And why the valkyries are knights? Because they are on horses, I guess. But truly, valkyries are like queens. They play the pawns wisely and choose the best. They decide who dies and who lives forever.

“I wanted you to see this,” says Wolf. He leans over and taps the keyboard in front of the computer screen. “I got this message this morning — from Nichols. The guy who put us in touch with Bo when we needed some stuff delivered.”

Wolf waves at the chair by the desk. “Here, take a look,” he says.

There is no way in hell I’m going to sit down and be trapped in that chair. I feel inside my pocket for the little knife I always keep there now.