At least he hadn’t left parallel lines in the muck with the branch. Not all of his training had been forgotten or ignored.
After a long minute, the flashlight snapped off and the Jeep drove on down the road.
Mac didn’t move until the sound of the Jeep’s tires had faded. Then he reached up and rubbed away the mosquito that had been drilling down into his neck. A second insect had already come and gone from his cheek. He could feel a welt rising there.
But he kept standing in the night anyway, waiting, listening, waiting some more.
11
DAY ONE
ON THE RESERVATION
11:17 P.M.
After walking deeper into the forest for about half a mile on the dirt track, Mac came to the edge of a clearing. Waist-high weeds, several rusting wrecks, and one ancient flatbed truck piled with corroding crab traps landscaped the area around the old trailer house.
He paused in the shadows as he always did. And, as always, he felt like he was back in a war zone.
He shifted the bottle of bourbon and wished it was that easy, but he knew it wasn’t.
Tommy was all tied up with Mac’s own past, the wild times from child to man, running free when someone should have hauled him up by the scruff and shaken some sense into him. He’d been the youngest of three. His father had hit the road just after Mac’s birth. His mother hadn’t left physically; she’d just quietly drunk herself into an early grave. Hard work, but she’d kept at it until she reached her goal.
Tommy was headed down that same early-grave road. It wasn’t alcohol that would get him there, though it was certainly greasing the way. Tommy’s reckless rage was what would kill him, his certainty that someone or something had stolen everything worth having, leaving him with a double handful of dog shit.
Once, Mac had felt the same way. Then he’d grown up, taken responsibility for his choices, and clawed his way out of a life that should have destroyed him the way it had his mother and two older brothers.
He didn’t even know if one of his brothers was still alive. The other had died in a single car rollover on the highway outside Rosario an hour after the bars closed.
The breeze shifted, bringing with it the stink of a trash fire smoldering in a fifty-five-gallon fuel drum. The rank odor of an overflowing outhouse lay heavily beneath the smoke. Light from a bare bulb gleamed weakly through the dirty window in the front of the trailer. Heavy metal music from his and Tommy’s childhood hammered through the darkness, making the mold-streaked trailer vibrate.
Mac walked swiftly across the clearing and pounded on the front door. “Yo, Tommy. You still awake? I brought the bourbon you said I owed you.”
It was the kind of bourbon Tommy couldn’t afford but knew he deserved.
Mac pounded harder. “Tommy, it’s Mac. You in there or did I make the drive for nothing?”
Part of Mac hoped that Tommy was gone. A big part.
The music stopped.
“Who’s there?” The voice was hoarse, wary.
“Mac.”
“Dude! It’s about time. I thought you forgot me and sucked down the righteous booze alone.”
The door opened, framing Tommy’s narrow body in light. The smell of rancid takeout pizza rolled over Mac, competing with the other rank odors of the night.
“A whole bottle?” Mac said, shaking his head. “I never could drink like that.”
“Yeah, true fact. You’re a white pussy. Don’t just stand there looking stupid. Bring that bottle in.”
Mac walked inside and saw that it was still the maid’s year off. Even for a bachelor sea captain, the place was a mess.
Tommy opened the bourbon bottle and took a long swig. “Damn, but that’s primo. Just in time, too. I’m broke and tired of being straight.”
“I hear crabbing is really down,” Mac said.
“You hear right.” Tommy took another swig. “But I got me a sweet gig coming.”
“Good,” Mac said quickly, not wanting to hear more about any
Too late. Tommy was already talking.
“Gonna get rich, richer than the ass clowns that run the casino.”
Mac nodded and kept his mouth shut. He’d heard it all before, and if he came back to the rez, he’d hear it again.
“Yeah, yeah,” Tommy said. “I know you don’t believe me. Nobody believes me.”
“If getting rich was easy, there would be a lot more rich people,” Mac said mildly.
“If they can’t see the way, too bad.” Tommy took another long swig and sighed. “Better than a woman, not as good as crank.”
Mac frowned. “Thought you gave that crap up.”
“Did. Ran out of money. Did some deals.” Tommy shrugged his thin shoulders. “But now I’m goin’ for the gold. Just like a fuckin’ athlete.”
Laughter that wasn’t quite sane filled the small trailer.
Mac snagged the bottle and took what looked like a drink. It wasn’t. He planned on driving home. Soon. Obviously Tommy was riding the ragged edge of the shakes.
Coming off crank was a bitch.
Tommy grabbed the bottle again and flopped into an overstuffed chair that was held together by duct tape. A lamp with a bare bulb sat on the small table nearby. It cast his grinning features in stark angles, dark hollows, too many lines and not enough teeth for a man who hadn’t seen the other side of forty yet.
“Remember when we ran that load of cigarettes to Vancouver?” Tommy asked, swiping hair out of his face with a dirty hand.
“Long time ago. We were young and stupid.”
“Sweet money.” Tommy drank and swallowed, drank and swallowed, his Adam’s apple working like a piston. “That’s smart.”
“Karl died.”
“Lucky Karl. He didn’t have to live rat-turd poor on the rez.”
“But I’m getting out,” Tommy said after another long drink. “Gonna take my money from my next job and head for white man’s land. Live like a fuckin’ sheik.”
“Sounds good.”
Too bad it never came through.
The half bottle of booze that Tommy had bolted hit him suddenly. He shook his head and slumped back into the chair.
“Just the beginning,” Tommy mumbled. “And here I thought old Granny was just a mama’s boy. Turns out he’s a big swinging dick. Got rich friends.” Tommy frowned. “Mean bastard.” A shiver shook his wiry frame. “Goddam, he’s one mean son of a bitch.”
