FICTION: The Fugitive

In the late afternoon, slow-moving cloud came in off the mountains and burst over Maxton City. Main Street had just been macadamed the year before and the rain turned it into a stream.

Dan Todd used the storm as an excuse to drop into the Turkey Inn on his way home from the newspaper office. He had already dawdled and detoured. He was avoiding the road home, and the one-pot dinner he knew was being kept warm on the stove.

That damn black pot. The thought of it made his gut hurt. Hazel always did use too much salt, and never trimmed the fat off the meat. Which would be fine, which he could live with, if she cooked it long enough for the damn fat to render out, but damn her, she never did. It just stewed like white rubber, and then he wouldn’t sleep with it sitting on his gut.

The Turkey was an old wooden building, one of the oldest in Maxton. In recent years, however, the old half-height saloon doors had been replaced with shining new ones in chrome and glass. They looked out of place but a travelling salesman from the city had dazzled old Jim with talk of modernisation, hygiene and glamour. It was true that  they kept the dust out in summer. Dan pushed his way in and let the door swing behind him.

The bar was gloomy, and downright dark towards the back. Jim ought to have switched on the lamps, what with the storm having made it so dark outside, but he always waited until six o’clock. It was a point of principle.

The barroom was long and thin. The counter was of polished wood with big cut glass mirrors on the wall behind. A row of stools lined the bar and there were wooden booths with benches along the opposite wall. There was a cigarette machine, a gum machine, and a cardboard sign that said ‘Please pay when served’.

Music was coming from a radio on the counter, a big city dance band strangled through a small speaker. Dan didn’t recognise the song but could hear somebody crooning about the moon and loneliness.

Dan took off his hat, revealing fine, fair hair, and slapped the felt brim firmly against his hand. Rainwater scattered on the floor. He hung the hat on the stand by the door. Then he shook off his coat and hung that up, too. He used his handkerchief to wipe raindrops from his spectacles as he approached the bar.

‘Beer, if you please.’

Jim was a round, blank-faced man bald except for tussocks of hair above his ears. He poured a mug of Old Joe’s Lager Beer and placed it on a napkin on the bar.

Dan glanced along the counter to the only other customer.

He was a hunched, miserable looking man in a heavy plaid jacket with a sheepskin lining. His head hung over an almost-empty beer mug that was clutched in his thick, dark hands.

Dan had few friends. He didn’t need them. But that night, he wanted to talk, and he heard himself saying: ‘Buy you a beer, friend?’

The man looked up.

Dan had never seen such eyes. They were like those of a whipped dog, or a seasick stowaway. The whites were the colour of slow-baked cream.

‘Had a couple already,’ he growled.

Dan began to turn away.

‘Could handle another.’

Jim looked at Dan, who nodded. As Dan lifted himself onto a stool, Jim placed the beer in front of the stranger.

‘Obliged to ya,’ said the stranger. He pushed his spent glass away and lifted the fresh one, glittering with dew, in Dan’s direction.

‘Name’s Dan Todd,’ said Dan. ‘What do I call you?’

The man on the other stool turned slowly to look over his shoulder, the movement creaky and apparently painful. He turned back and glanced at Dan from under black, unruly brows.

‘Call me Grant.’

‘That your first name or your last?’

Grant took a long gulp of beer and rubbed foam from his stubble-covered upper lip.

Now he was settled next to Grant, Dan could detect a musk about the man that he didn’t like. Men often had a smell after a day’s work. Heck, even he needed to shower after a day baking in that miserable office which the old man insisted on keeping sealed like a diving bell. Grant’s smell, though, was rotten, as if he was sick and didn’t yet know it. It came out of his pores and in his breath whenever he turned a little towards Dan.

‘Hope you don’t mind a little company,’ said Dan, hoping that Grant would send him away.

‘I ain’t a big talker but I don’t mind listening,’ said Grant.

‘You might regret saying that, friend,’ said Dan with a dry laugh. He took his beer mug in his strong right hand and sipped a little. ‘I’ve got a lot on my mind.’

Grant rolled his yellow eyes towards Dan and waited.

‘Well, it’s just that, oh, well, a fellow gets so damn bored.’

‘Bored how?’

‘See, the thing is, I’ve never lived anywhere but Maxton,’ said Dan. ‘I didn’t even go to college, and I missed the war. Started writing for the paper when I was fourteen and I’ve been there ever since. I suppose it’s been quite different for you?’

‘I know the road, that’s true,’ said Grant. ‘Six states and five countries.’

With a sigh, Dan said, ‘Gosh. Doing what?’

‘Picking fruit. Crewing boats. Driving trucks. Peeling taters.’

‘I should have done all of that before I married,’ said Dan. ‘I should have done everything. Are you married?’

‘Was.’

‘Then you know how it is. The same conversations, the same dinners on the table, the same old flower arrangement on the stand in the hall.’

Grant grunted.

‘Sounds tough.’

Before Dan could reply Grant shivered as if an earthquake had shaken his body.

‘Got a fever?’ asked Dan, leaning back in his stool. ‘Get caught in the storm?’

‘Hungry, mostly,’ said Grant. ‘Ain’t eaten today.’

Dan waved a hand at Jim. The barkeep had slunk away to the far end of the bar to watch the rain on the glass but saw the movement from the corner of his eye.

‘Couple of sandwiches,’ he said.

Jim nodded and disappeared through a door into the kitchen.

‘You was saying about your wife,’ said Grant. ‘Them flowers in the hall.’

Dan knew he wasn’t really interested. It was just that he’d rather hear Dan talk than talk himself. Dan rubbed a hand through his damp hair and pushed his glasses tight to the bridge of his nose.

‘I shouldn’t have said anything,’ said Dan. ‘It’s not gentlemanly.’

‘You was saying about the dinners and the conversations.’

There was a suggestion of bitterness in Grant’s voice now. Jealousy, perhaps, Dan thought.

‘I don’t mean to complain,’ said Dan. ‘I don’t mean to boast either. We’re just like any other couple that’s been married five years. Not sick of each other, exactly, but—’ Well, he thought, maybe sick of each other is exactly right. ‘I like apple pie but I don’t want to eat it every damn day.’

Grant finished his beer in a single long pull as Jim returned with two thin, greasy sandwiches. Nobody came to the Turkey to eat. Grant flicked at one sandwich with a dirty nail, peeled back the bread, let it drop.

‘Another beer,’ Grant said.

‘Put it on my tab,’ said Dan. ‘I’ll take another, too.’

There was a sudden change in the air in the bar and the door made a booming sound as it was thrown open. Two men entered, followed by a gust of wind carrying about equal amounts of dust and rain.

Both were dressed in hunting clothes, plaid shirts and woolen caps, but Dan noticed immediately that they were wearing polished black city shoes.

‘Howdy,’ said one of the men with a broad, childlike smile. He was grey-haired, lean and tall. He looked everywhere but at Grant.

His companion was younger with rough red hair and a sharp jaw. His big teeth didn’t quite fit in his mouth. He looked directly at Grant and thereafter his eyes didn’t move from the shaggy figure at the bar.

‘What’ll it be?’ asked Jim.

‘Two beers,’ said the older man.

‘Not for me,’ said the other, still staring at Grant. ‘Coke, if you have it, or root beer.’

They took seats at the end of the bar, one looking at Grant, the other pointedly not.

‘My wife was a wonder,’ growled Grant, almost under his breath.

Dan turned so that his back blocked Grant from view. He did not know why he did this, only that he did not like the young red-haired man, not at all.

‘Not too good with the flowers or conversations but–’ He gave a low, howling whistle. ‘She was sure nice to be around. Sure knew how to make a feller feel like a million dollars.’

‘Then why did you leave her? Or let her go?’

Their conversation was now being held at a whisper and sounded more conspiratorial than perhaps they knew.

‘Somebody killed her,’ said Grant. He took hold of the beer glass in front of him and gave it four quarter turns with his dirty fingertips until it was back where it started.

Dan swallowed.

‘Somebody?’

‘Not me,’ said Grant, wearily. ‘Somebody. Something. They never did find out.’

‘Something? Who do you mean, “they”?’

Dan glanced towards the two men at the end of the bar and then back at Grant.

‘Who are those men?’

‘I ain’t never seen ‘em before today.’

‘Well, I just don’t know what to think,’ said Dan. He took a mouthful of beer, struggled to swallow, as if he’d forgotten how.

‘Don’t think nothing. We’ll finish our beers and then I’ll walk out of here. They’ll follow me and something will happen, who knows what. But it won’t matter none to you because you’ll be home with that wife of yours soon enough, feeling glad you ain’t me.’

For the first time, Grant laughed. It was a rough, raw bark.

‘The grass is always greener, they say,’ said Grant, ‘except there ain’t nobody looking at my lawn and wishing it was theirs.’

Grant drank some beer. He and Dan sat in silence for a minute before he drank the rest.

As he pushed back the stool it scraped on the boards and the two detectives, or special agents, or whatever they were, looked sharply in Grant’s direction. There was no jollity in the older man’s face now, and the younger man looked ready to wrestle a mountain bobcat.

Grant didn’t offer to shake Dan’s hand, which Dan was glad about, having seen his filthy nails and the blisters on his palms.

‘See you around,’ Grant said as he pushed past and headed for the bar’s front door. On the mat, he pulled up the collar of his plaid jacket and retrieved a woollen hat from his jacket pocket. He pulled the hat on tight, and low over his eyes. Then he stepped out into the blue evening light.

The moment the door was closed, the older of the two detectives threw a bill on the bar.

‘Keep the change.’

They rushed out into the street after Grant.

At last, when it was just Dan in front of the counter and Jim behind it, the two men spoke.

‘Policeman, I reckon. They believe he killed his wife,’ said Dan.

‘No smoke without fire,’ said Jim. ‘That feller stank of Folsom.’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Dan.

‘Some reporter,’ said Jim with a smile.

Jim checked his watch and switched on the lights. They filled the empty bar with queasy yellow light. The dance band on the radio finished with a flourish and a soap company spokesman began talking about how to avoid ‘scummy dishpan film’.

‘I’d better be going,’ said Dan. He looked at his glass of beer but didn’t finish it.

---

When he stepped outside he found the sky clear, the storm having blown on clean through the valley, and dusk coming on. There was a full, round moon rising faintly above the spikes of the ponderosa pine trees on the foothills.

Main Street was quiet, in that just-scrubbed silence that comes after a storm, and Dan could hear his own footsteps on the sidewalk as he tramped towards home. He was crying, just a little, because of the cold air in his eyes, he told himself, though he was thinking of Hazel and how sweet it would be to sit with her in front of the radio, even if there was nothing to talk about.

He could tell her about Grant, he supposed, but he wouldn’t. It would scare her, in lots of different ways.

The next morning Dan left his house under a cold, clear sky, feeling rested and fortunate. He passed the fine old houses on the street, each spaced apart with room for a paddock or orchard, and smiled. Some had cars or pickup trucks parked outside, none of them new, but all well cared for and clean.

As he neared the end of the road, he saw that there were big black cars parked along the edge of the forest that led into the foothills. There were men in uniform, too. As he came closer, Dan saw Pete Nachel, the Sheriff, and two of his deputies. Pete was a tall man with a moustache whose points reached his jaw, like Wyatt Earp. His hat was trimmed with a gold cord. There were men from out of town, too, in black suits and black hats.

‘Morning, Dan,’ said Pete as Dan approached. ‘Hear any trouble here last night?’

Dan stopped and peered into the trees.

‘Walked this way at about six thirty yesterday evening and all was well. What’s the problem?’

Pete looked towards the out-of-towners who were busy supervising a photographer.

‘Couple of G-Men dead in the gully. Followed one of them public enemies up this way. Been tracking him for months. Man named Grant.’

Dan swallowed hard and licked his dry lips.

‘Golly. And he shot ‘em?’

Pete pursed his lips and shook his head slowly.

‘Well, no. They’re cut up pretty bad. They say he done it with a knife. In a frenzy, they say. That’s how his wife got it.’

‘Did they find a knife?’

Pete squinted and tipped his head to one side.

‘Well, maybe it was a knife, maybe it wasn’t.’

‘What do you mean?’

Pete took off his hat and drew his long fingers through his thin hair.

‘This is still wild country round here, Dan, and I say an animal done it.’ He nodded firmly. ‘Biting and tearing, damn near minced… Yes, an animal. Can’t be nothing else. A man couldn’t have done it, not like that.’

Dan stood silently, staring down into the darkest part of the forest, and thought to himself: Old Grant never did eat that sandwich, hungry as he was.

Main image: Yreeka, California, by Lee Russell, 1942, in the public domain via the Library of Congress.