If You Could See Me Now (26 page)

They obeyed. I could see the man in the cap limping up behind them, his hands in the air. His tan workshirt was flecked with black, blood leaking through some of the holes. His hands were blackened too. He stood by the dogwood with his hands up. “Walk backward,” I said. “All the way to your cars.”

Hank Speltz took a step backward into the dogwood, looked around wildly, and then began to edge around to the path. The others moved with him, following me with their eyes.

“If you're so innocent, how come you stuck around up here?” asked the man in the plaid shirt.

I gestured with the shotgun.

“Screwing that old crazy woman up in the woods,” said Hank Speltz. “That's how come. And what about Gwen Olson and Jenny Strand?”

“You're asking the wrong man,” I said. “Now I want you to start moving backward toward the cars.”

When they did not move I shifted the barrels to the right, flicked the safety, and pulled one of the triggers. The recoil nearly jerked the shotgun from my hands. The sound was
louder than the explosion of the gas can. All of them moved smartly away from the dogwood. I saw that I had shredded the leaves and ruined the blossoms, leaving broken twigs and the smell of powder hanging. “You damn near killed Roy back there,” said the one in the plaid shirt.

“What was he going to do to me? Move.” I raised the barrels, and they began to step backward down the path.

Over their shoulders I could see the mess of the long front lawn. A ragged, irregular black circle ten yards from the drive showed where the ten-gallon can had exploded. Smaller burned patches, a greasy yellow in color, were dotted all over the lawn, churned and rutted by their tires. A large hole had been blown in the mesh of the porch screen. The animals had disappeared down into the far end of the side field.

“We ain't through yet,” said the man whose name I did not know.

“Hank, get in your pickup and drive out,” I said. “I'll be coming in to pick up my car soon, and I don't expect any trouble.”

“No,” he said, and sprinted toward the truck in the driveway.

All three of us watched him roar away scattering dirt as he turned onto the valley road.

“Now you, Roy.” The man in the cap looked at me glumly, lowered his hands, and walked heavily over the lawn to pass between the walnut trees. He stopped to stamp out the small flames licking up at the base of one of the trees.

“Now it's your turn,” I said to the remaining man.

“Whyn't you just kill us?” he asked belligerently. “You like killin'. We all know about you. You got sumpun wrong in your head.”

I said, “If you don't get out of here right now, you won't believe what's happening to you. You'll probably live for a
minute or two, but you'll be glad to die when they're over.” I cradled the gun in my arms and leveled it at his belt. And then I did an astounding thing—a thing that astounded me. I laughed. Self-disgust hit me with such force that I feared for a moment that I would vomit.

PORTION OF STATEMENT BY HANK SPELTZ:

July 15

I was standin' there watchin' Miles and I says to myself, boy, if you ever get outa this I promise I'll go to church every Sunday, I'll pray every night, I'll never say another dirty word, I'll be good forever, because you never seen anything like the way that Miles looked, crazy enough to chew glass, eat gunpowder, that's how he looked. His eyes they was just slits. His hair was flyin' all directions. When he let go with one of those barrels, I thought, uh-oh, the next one's for me. Because he knew me from the filling station. I didn't even wanna be there in the first place, I just went because Red Sunderson said, he said we'll all park in front of his place and scare hell out of old Miles. And we'll break him down for sure. He's got that girl put away somewhere. So I said, count me in. Then when the other ones all pulled out, I saw Roy and Don were stayin', so I thought I'd stick around for the fun.

He was a trapped rat. Like something mean backed up into a corner. Man. He blew shit out of everything with that gas can—he didn't care what happened. He coulda killed himself too!

So when he let me go I just took off, yessir, right off, and I figured, let someone else find that girl. But I did a little something extra to that beat-to-shit VW of his
after I got to town. I fixed it real good. I fixed it so's he couldn't go but thirty-forty miles an hour, and wouldn't run very long at any one time too. One thing I am's a good mechanic.

But I knew that crazy sonofabitch done it. And if you ask me, he was askin' to get caught. Else why would he put that name Greening on the repair slip? Answer me that.

A screaming voice: “Miles, you bastard! You bastard!”: Duane.

“Calm down.” Another voice, deeper, lower.

“Get the shit out here! Now!”

“Just simmer down, Duane. He'll come.”

“Goddam you! Goddam you! You crazy?”

I cautiously open the door and see that Duane in fury appears to be reduced in size, a small square jigging knot of red-faced anger. “I told you, goddamit! I said, stay the hell away from my girl! And second, what the hell is all this? He whirls around, his rage giving him agility, and the gesture of his arms encompasses, as well as the greasy yellowish and black burns on the ripped lawn and the marks of the explosion—the gaping hole in the screen, twisted pieces of the gas can—the figure of Polar Bears in uniform behind him, and Alison Updahl hurrying up the path toward her home. She glances over her shoulder, nearly there already, sending me a look, half fear, half warning.

“Just sitting in their cars, goddam it—just sitting out there—no goddam trouble—and what the hell did you do? Make a goddam bomb? Look at my lawn!” He stomps heavily, too furious to speak any longer.

“I tried to call you,” I say to Polar Bears.

“You're lucky I don't kill you now!” Duane screams.

“I'm lucky they didn't kill me then.”

Polar Bears firmly positions one hand on Duane's shoulder. “Hold your horses,” he says. “Dave Lokken told me you called up. I didn't expect there'd be any trouble, Miles. I figured you could take a bunch of our country boys starin' at you from the road.”

“Sittin' there—just sittin' there,” Duane says, quietly now that Polar Bears is gripping his shoulder.

“I didn't think you'd declare war on 'em.”

“I didn't think you'd go crawlin' around after my girl either,” Duane hisses, and I see Polar Bears' fingers tighten. “I warned you. I told you, stay off. You're gonna get it—for sure.”

“They didn't just sit there. Most of them left when they saw me dialing the telephone, but three of them decided to come for me.”

“See who they were this time, Miles?”

“That boy from the garage, Hank Speltz, a man named Roy, and one I didn't know. One of those who threw stones at me in Arden.”

“Stones…stones,”
hisses Duane, his contempt so great that it is almost despair.

“How d'ya manage all this?” He lifts his chin toward the lawn where tire tracks and brown muddy ruts loop crazily.

“They did most of it themselves. They drove all over it. I guess they were in a hurry to get out before you showed up. The rest I did. I flipped an open gas can from the garage on top of a burning cigarette. I didn't even think it would work. You knew they were going to be here, didn't you?”

“You got me again. Sure I knew. I figured they'd just help keep you—”

“Out of trouble. Like Paul Kant.”

“Yeah.” His smile almost expresses pride in me.

“You and Duane were together? With Alison?”

“Keep her name out of your mouth, damn you,” Duane says.

“Just having a beer in the Bowl-A-Rama.”

“Just having a beer. Not working on your story.”

“Even a cop doesn't work all the time, Miles,” he says, and I think: no. You do work all the time, and that's why you are dangerous. He takes his paw off Duane's arm and shrugs his shoulders. “I wanted to explain to Du-ane here that you and me are sort of helpin' each other out on these killings. That's a big plus for you, Miles. You shouldn't want to take that plus away from yourself. Now I hear you been talking to Du-ane about some crazy idea you got. You been talking about just the exact thing I told you not to talk about, Miles. Now that kinda makes me question your judgment. I just wanta be sure you've seen the error in your thinking. Old Duane here didn't tell you you was right, did he? When you hit him with this crazy idea?” He looks at me, his face open and companionable. “Did you, Duane?”

“I said he should talk to you.”

“Well, you see, you got him all suspicious and worked up.”

“I knew it out at the quarry, really. I had the girl shout. You couldn't hear her on the road.”

Duane stamps in a furious muttering half circle. “Undressed. You were undressed.”

“Hold on, Duane, you'll make it worse. Old Miles will just go on drawing the wrong conclusions if you get sidetracked. Now, Miles, Duane says he never said you was right in your ideas. Now let's ask him. Were you out there that night?”

Duane shakes his head, looking angrily at the ground.

“Of course you weren't. It's all in the records my father made. You went out on 93 and turned the other way, toward Liberty. Right?”

Duane nods.

“You were mad at that little Greening girl, and you just wanted to get the hell away from her. Right? Sure,” as Duane nods again. “See, Miles, if you just tell a girl to yell without her knowing anything about why, she's not liable to really give her best, like a girl would if she's bein' attacked. You see the error there? Now, I don't want you to go on talking about this, because you'll just dig yourself into a deep hole, Miles.”

There is no point in prolonging this charade. “That little Greening girl,” the figure of lean intensity I have seen leveling her muzzle toward the house? That little Greening girl, the fire in the woods and the blast of freezing wind? I can smell cold water about me.

I think that which I do not wish to think; and remember Rinn's words. My guilt drowns me.

Duane, for different reasons, also does not wish to continue. “To hell with this,” he says. Then he straightens up and his pudgy red-and-white face flames at me. “But I warned you about seeing my daughter again.”

“She asked me to come with her.”

“Did she? Did she? That's what you say. I suppose you say you didn't take off your clothes in front of her.”

“It was just for swimming. She took hers off first. The boy undressed too.”

In front of Duane, I cannot tell Polar Bears my fears about Zack. I have already said too much, for Duane looks ready to flail out again.

I am trembling. I feel cold wind.

“Yeah, okay,” Duane says. “Sure. Whatever you say.” He turns his upper body toward me. “If you fool around with her, Miles, I won't wait for anyone else to get you. I'll get you myself.” Yet there is no real conviction in this threat, he does not care enough; treachery is what he expects from women.

Polar Bears and I watch him tramping up the path. Then he turns to me. “Say, you look kind of peaked, Miles. Must be all that skinny-dipping you do.”

“Which one of you raped her?”

“Hold on.”

“Or did you take turns?”

“I'm beginning to question your judgment again, Miles.”

“I'm beginning to question everything.”

“You heard me mention that hole you could be digging for yourself?” Polar Bears steps toward me, big and solid and full of serious concern, and I see dark blue blotches of perspiration on his uniform shirt, dark blue smudges beneath his eyes. “Jesus, boy, you gotta be crazy, throwing bombs at the citizens here, gettin' yourself in trouble…” He is moving with a cautious, wary slowness and I think
this is it: he's going to break, he's going to fight me
. But he stops and rubs a hand over his face. “Pretty soon this is all gonna be over, Miles. Pretty soon.” He steps back, and the sour combination of sweat and gunpowder engulfing me like smoke recedes with him. “Miles. Jesus Christ. What was that you were telling Dave Lokken about something like a doorknob?”

I cannot answer.

That night and every night afterward I turned off the gas where Tuta Sunderson had shown me. In the mornings, when she heaved herself into the kitchen and began to cough and stamp her feet and shuffle around and clear her throat and produce the entire array of noises expressive of sullen discontent with which I had become familiar, among them was always the sharp grunt of suspicious disapproval—and contempt?—that accompanied her discovery that I had done so. I would have fired her but for my certainty that, like Bartleby, she would
have come anyhow. The day after the visitation by Hank Speltz and the others, I heard the coughing, feet stamping, etc., and went downstairs to ask her if she had known what was going to happen. Foolish me. “Did I know what? What was going to happen? So what happened?” She had made no comment on the condition of the lawn or the hole in the porch screen. I told her that I imagined her son had been involved. “Red? Red doesn't get messed up in anything. Now how many eggs do you want to throw away today?”

For days I did nothing but work; and I worked undisturbed, for it seemed that no one would talk to me. Apart from her morning demonstrations of how much noise she could produce, Tuta Sunderson was silent; Duane kept away, even turning his head so he would not have to look at me on the infrequent times he passed the old farmhouse. His daughter, presumably beaten or warned off in a less physical manner, also avoided me. Sometimes, from my bedroom window I could see her crisscrossing the path to go to the equipment barn or the granary, her body looking rushed and inexpressive, but she never appeared downstairs in the kitchen or on the porch, chewing something from my larder. At night, I was often awakened from dozing at my desk, the martini glass beside me and the pencil still in my hand, by the sound of Zack's motorcycle cutting off when it came parallel to me. I wrote. I dozed. I drank. I accumulated guilt. I hoped that soon the Michalskis would get a postcard from their vanished daughter. I hoped that Polar Bears was right, and that it would soon be over. I often wanted to leave.