This Given Sky (6 page)

The highway led past a gigantic sphere of pale light:

Prison
—a for-profit prison of a corporation invested in by a law-writing U.S. Senator. From its Main Street dotted by vacant stores, Shelby’s politicians wooed the
crime pays
corporation with tax incentives vindicated when the facility opened the last year of the twentieth century and fostered marginal wage jobs for guards who walked into work each morning past a sign proclaiming Wall Street’s current stock price for the company that profited from keeping men locked up. As he drove past the glowing sphere, Jake glanced through the chain-link electrified fence at the half-dozen concrete buildings the size of high schools. Saw no ghosts of cowboys.

He knew if he stayed on the interstate that ran thirty miles beyond Shelby to Canada, he’d drive past dozens of pre-fabricated houses erected near the airport after 9/11 for the massive re-enforcement of what had been a carload of Border Patrolmen by the new Department of Homeland Security and its Report All Suspicious Activity signs.

But he couldn’t remember more of a Springsteen lyric about
runaway American dream
as he took the Shelby exit, followed the plan, and drove past Thel’s closed-for-the-night co-op, past their bulldozed elementary school and the boarded-up old high school, parked in the alley behind the Tap Room.

Shut off his car.

Saw no one in the other parked vehicles.

Saw no one anywhere in the darkness.

Jake walked through the graveled alley, eased through the bar’s back door into the glow of fluorescent signs for beer.

Locked the back door behind him.

The thirty-something couple at the bar by the Main Street door witnessed Jake’s entrance, but he didn’t think they knew him. The old woman in a mustard sweatshirt and tan pants perched at a poker machine kept her back to Jake and her face glued to the computer screen.

The jukebox played Hank Williams’ “Hey, Good Lookin’.”

Steve stood alone behind the bar.

He chin-pointed Jake to a stool near the locked back door.

Turned to the thirty-something couple who were looking for their second marriage. Said: “That’s gonna do it for you guys, right?”

The man seized that chance to lead her somewhere else in the night.

Steve brought a glass of water to Jake.

Who said: “Anybody show up?”

Steve shook his head. Put the envelope of cash Jake passed him next to another envelope tucked amidst the bottles in front of the bar mirror. Put a plastic-wrapped roast beef sandwich in front of Jake.

“Fuel.”

The sandwich tasted as metallic as pre-mission meals in Saudi.

Steve wore a short-sleeve blue Hawaiian shirt over black jeans. He emptied a Red Bull energy drink down the sink. Rinsed the bottle. Popped the tab on a golden can branded Diet Coke—Decaffeinated, poured enough of that syrupy fluid to fill three-quarters of the Red Bull bottle, topped it off with cream from the bar refrigerator. He glanced at the closed front door, at the night beyond the window’s red neon
Tap Room
sign. Made sure the old lady had her eyes mesmerized by the poker machine.

On the shelf below the bar, Steve put two white pills on an orange flyer for a band called Russ Nasset & the Revelators, ground the pills to a white powder with an empty beer bottle. Steve tapped that white powder into his liquid concoction, screwed on the cap, shook the Red Bull bottle.

Set that home brew out of sight under the bar.

Came down to Jake. Said: “Can’t really talk.”

Jake said: “Not much to say.”

Knew the old lady didn’t see them grasp hands across the bar.

She told the soulless machine: “You’re bluffing!”

Punched a button—got a
beep!

“See!” she proclaimed.

Jake checked his watch: 8:17.

So it went. The old lady swearing at or sassing the beeping poker machine—8:32. The juke box ran out of paid-for songs—8:47. Jake sat on the bar stool near the locked back door. Steve stood behind the bar—8:51. Maneuvered three drink-buying customers who strolled in back out to the night faster than they’d figured—9:24.

The Main Street door flew open to the neon darkness.

And then, though he’d never seen those three men before, Jake knew that the wary-eyed weasel scout who came through the door first didn’t much matter. Neither did the last man to enter as a rear guard, a stubby-bodied and stubble-faced slouch.

Who mattered was the guy in the brown leather sports jacket. He was thin, a face like pale ivory. His buzz cut made him look bald. He smiled by dropping his lower jaw, like one of those plastic skulls sold for Halloween.

The skull said: “What’s happening, Steve?”

“Figured to see you after ten like you promised, Burdett.”

“Well, I
figured
I’d catch you
figuring
before you thought I would.”

The stubby-bodied, stubble-faced slouch snickered.

The weasel scout drifted down the length of the bar past the machine-mesmerized old woman. Let his eyes burn Jake who didn’t turn his head to track him walking past the pool table and the jukebox. Jake heard a door open, figured it was the Mares bathroom, heard heels clunk on the tiles toward the Mustangs bathroom, then to the storage room. Jake heard someone rattle the back door he’d locked. Weasel-eyes walked back the way he came to stand somewhere behind where Jake sat on a barstool.

“Where’s your lovely wife?” said Burdett. “You’d think a concerned mother like Thel would be here tonight.”

“She’s waiting for a phone call she better get.”

Beep!
went the poker machine.

“Son of a bitch,” muttered the woman trapped by a glowing screen.

Burdett grinned. Leaned closer to the bar and in a
sotto
voice that everyone knew the only woman in the bar ignored, said: “Life’s a gamble. And it’s a bitch when you don’t hold the right cards.”

Steve said: “Where is she?”

Burdett turned to the only customer sitting at the bar. “You must be ‘
just Jake
.’ I’ve heard so many . . .
things
about you.”

Jake said: “I hope so.”

“And you must have heard how I’ve been helping out poor Steve here,” said Burdett. “His daughter—or is it
your
daughter? In the end, does it matter? Somebody’s daughter. A fully legal adult woman, know what I mean? Congratulations to . . . well, I guess to both of you. She’s real fine.

“That’s why I’m glad to help,” said Burdett. “Why my guys here and I, we’re all just happy—hungry even—to,
ah
, help with Sara.”

Jake saw Steve’s fists tighten down below the bar.

As if he saw those closed fists, too, Burdett smiled, gave his back to the father standing behind the bar, turned his pale skull to Jake.

Said: “So when I was at the grocery store and found a cell phone lying in the Cheerios aisle, I had them loudspeaker
lost phone
—which is what any honest, decent citizen would do. Nobody claimed it, so I checked the phone’s Contacts, found Home, discovered Thel on the answering machine. Got a great voice, doesn’t she? Love to go home to that. But I didn’t want to drive to the co-op and bother her. Not there. Not then. Besides, Steve’s always here cleaning toilets or taking dimes off of drunks, so I brought it to him. Seemed like the right thing to do.

“Come to find out the phone is Sara’s and she’s gone in the wind. Knowing her like I do—like the whole town knows her—I bet she was on a run, bingeing meth where and . . . how she could get it. Sad, really.”

“Try not to cry,” said Jake.

“Why not?” said Burdett. “Maybe that’ll help.”

Laughter came from behind Jake.

Grady

Burdett said: “But you’re right. What Steve figured out is that meth freaks run up big tabs. Sara’d been gone by then,
what
?—four days? Four nights? Long time, lots of dollars, and her nowhere to be found because the weird thing is, in a wide open place like this, even beyond all the
never know what’s in ’em
houses in town, it’s surprising how many farmhouses and shacks, barns and garages and trailers in coulees there are that not even the sheriff will ever find. Can’t even spot all of them from a plane.

“Wait a minute!” said Burdett. “That reminds me. You’re a . . .
a pilot
, aren’t you
just Jake
? Fly cargo planes all over the west. Take who knows what to who knows where, mostly in the night when nobody sees.”

“I work for a living,” said Jake.

“Good for you, man.” Burdett shook his head. “I’m sad to say that in these hard-dollar days, me and the boys here pick up what we can, but we have yet to find a personally fulfilling and financially lucrative career.”

He leaned toward Jake, said: “I blame the government.”

Jake gave him flat eyes.

“But hey,” continued Burdett: “We can’t be about blame, now can we? There’s probably enough to go around for everybody. What I’m here for, what we’re all here for—except for Audrey, there,
right Audrey
?”

The on-Social-Security woman locked into the computer game muttered: “Yeah, hi, whoever, whatever, leave me concentrate.”

Burdett said: “Now there’s someone who knows what she wants.”

Steve said: “You see envelopes by the mirror. I see nobody I want.”

“Is what we figured for expenses in them?”

“And you don’t touch them until I touch her.”

“About that.” Burdett swept his hand toward the man on the barstool. “A world traveler like Jake here understands these kinds of things. It’s been another two days to me and them envelopes getting together here tonight.”

“You always knew that.”

“But what I didn’t figure on—and here I apologize, I really do—is the world we live in. Expenses and clocks keep on keeping on. Plus when me and my boys risked going out looking for somebody’s daughter, we found out that the meth scene’s changed from the good old days. Now instead of reasonable Montana men cooking up some cash, it’s the damn Mexican Mafia bossing the show. They got no mercy when it comes to dollars. Course, they’re also into other businesses. People buy. People sell. And those
hombres
know how to turn a repossessed debtor into a revenue generator that puts out
mucho
profit.”

Before Steve could jump over the bar, Jake said to Burdett: “How come you’re still alive?”

“I don’t blink.”

Steve said: “What you see here is all we’ve got.”

Burdett shrugged. “Sometimes we all got more than we think.”

Jake said: “What are you talking about?”

“Well I’m not quite sure,” said Burdett. “I’m not as . . . sophisticated as a man like you who flies everywhere all the time with all kinds of cargo.

“But let’s make this promise to each other, OK?” said Burdett. “Now that we’re all here in the old hometown, let’s sleep on what it is we can do to get our precious Sara out of the fix she’s gotten herself into, and then get together again in the morning and see what we’ve come up with.

“Besides what’s in those envelopes,” added Burdett.

Beep!
went the poker machine.

Burdett spread his arms wide: “We’re all reasonable men.”

Jake said: “Nothing
reasonable
happens until our eyes see Sara.”

Burdett slapped the bar. Turned to Steve. “You gotta love this guy. I just knew he was smarter than us two combined. Bet you figured that, too.

“And,” said Burdett, “I bet if me and my boys nose around out there tonight, we can find where
maybe
, if a father was standing alone on the side of some lonesome highway, a car could drive by and he could get a good long look at his daughter riding past, giving him a wave even, showing how she was so he could decide for himself where she was going.”

“Dawn tomorrow,” said Steve.

“
Naw
,” said Burdett, “one more hard night of looking for Sara will tucker me out. One of us will either call here or fall by at . . .
oh
, let’s make it ten in the
A.M
. Be sure to have the coffee on.”

Burdett turned from the bar toward the front door.

His stubby-bodied, stubble-faced factotum scurried to hold it open.

Weasel-eyes walked from behind Jake to step out first into the night.

Burdett turned back as he reached the open door. Smiled.

Said: “Sweet dreams.”

And was gone, the door closing behind him.

Beep!

Jake started to climb off his barstool.

Steve said: “Sit tight.”

He picked up the bar phone, dialed: “Paul? . . . I was right, can you come in, stay, and close up? . . . Soon as you can get here.”

Steve’s cell phone buzzed by the cash register.

Into the bar phone, he said: “Paul, use the back door . . . Because.”

Beep!
went the poker machine and the old woman said: “Damn!”

Steve hung up the bar phone, answered his cell phone: “Yeah . . . good . . . he’s here . . . be sure. Come in the back.”

Jake spun off the barstool, unlocked the back door. When he reclaimed his stool, Steve handed him the two envelopes stuffed with cash.

“You’re making that call,” said Steve. “I’m too over the line.”