decayed fences extending out of sight both sides of the road.
“Oh, joy,” Crystal said from her bed in the back of the handicap van. “I finally get to meet Mister Mortimer, the meanest man in the world. Do you suppose he will hang me upside down by my toes?”
“He might.” A half mile down the road on the left a few buildings were visible in the shade of a clump of deciduous trees. Fletch felt for Mortimer. This sparse country was a long way indeed from the noisy arenas of the northeast. He almost felt guilty. “He just might.”
They were arriving at Mortimer’s boxing camp even earlier than Fletch had thought. It was five past eight. Neither Crystal nor he had slept well. They had gotten on the road before dawn. They stopped only twice for food and not at all for lavatory facilities. The first person Fletch asked in the small Wyoming town gave immediate, simple directions to the boxing camp. The local citizen Fletch asked said, “You mean that mean son of a bitch New York bastard?” He knew just where Mortimer lived.
Fletch said, “He may hang us both up by the toes.”
Fletch accelerated the van down the bumpy, dusty road.
“Fletch!” Crystal complained from the rear of the van. “You might bounce me off the bed!”
“I’ve decided to try to take the old bastard by surprise.” Seeing the place, Fletch considered that Mortimer had real reason to shoot Fletch on sight.
“Fletch, slow down!”
“Hang on!”
“Are you sure you’re doing the right thing bringing me here?”
“Of course not!”
“Help! Let me out!”
“Now, Crystal,” Fletch said in a reasonable tone. “You wouldn’t know you were in Wyoming without a rough ride.”
A lanky old man appeared at the edge of the cluster of trees surrounding the buildings. In one hand was a shotgun. He fired into the air.
A shirtless boy in shorts ran to a position a few meters from Mortimer and knelt on one knee. He, too, carried a shotgun. He took aim at the van.
He fired.
A puff of dust arose in the air just in front of the van.
“Fletch!” Crystal screamed. “They’re shooting!”
“They’re shootin’,” Fletch said, “but they ain’t hittin’.” He began swinging the van’s steering wheel. “Zigzag,” he said.
“Fletch! Enough of zigzag! I’m sloshing around back here!”
Through the rearview mirror, Fletch saw the bottom half of Crystal’s sheet rising into the air. She must be raising her legs, he realized.
He didn’t know she could do that.
Mortimer, having reloaded, fired at the van.
His shot went high.
Fletch left the road. He aimed the van straight at Mortimer. He accelerated.
Going over ground even rougher than the road made the van jounce wildly.
“Fletch!” Crystal sounded like she was strangling. “You’re beating me to death!”
Mortimer jumped out of the way.
Holding his shotgun by the barrel like a club, the boy ran after the van.
Fletch stopped the van near the buildings in the shade of the trees.
In the swirling dust, the boy stopped a meter from Fletch’s open window.
“Hi,” Fletch said through the window. “Are you Haja, or Ricky?”
“Ricky.”
“What? Say that again.”
“Ricky.”
“Wow. ‘Ricky.’”
“What is the matter?”
“Never heard anybody say that before, I guess. That way.”
The sixteen year old had the perfect boxer’s build.
But his voice had a timbre that sounded as if it were coming from the back of a miles-long cave.
Ricky, holding the shotgun by the barrel with one hand, gently rested its butt on the ground. He positioned his legs oddly, creating the impression of being totally alert and relaxed at the same time.
Chin tilted sideways, the boy’s eyes looked at the ground between them. Then he ran his eyes slowly up the van’s door and fixed them on Fletch’s face.
Doing these simple things the boy gave the impression of complete readiness, to listen or to fight, to laugh or to twist Fletch’s head off.
“Wow,” Fletch said. “Fascinating.”
Fletch was dimly aware of Mortimer stumbling up, yelling his head off.
He tuned Mortimer in. “—G.D. S.O.B.! I told you to stay a state’s length away from me! I told you if you showed up here, I’d shoot you! And Goddamn it, I will!”
So great was Mortimer’s fury that he dropped the shell he was trying to jam into the shotgun.
Another young man, heavily muscled and well over six feet tall and naturally darker than Ricky, stood under a nearby tree, his long arms relaxed at his sides.
Fletch said to him, “How’re ya doin’, Haja?”
“Good,” Haja answered.
Fletch surmised from both boys’ sweaty hair and dusty socks they had been on a long run.
He envied them.
While Mortimer was picking the shotgun shell off the ground, Fletch got out of the van.
“Dreadful lookin’ place you got here,” Fletch said. “It’s a wonder we didn’t give it back to the American natives.”
As Fletch walked straight up to him, Mortimer dropped the shell again. He snapped the empty gun barrel closed. He pointed it at Fletch’s stomach.
“I told that damned woman of yours who answers your phone in Tennessee that if you showed up here I’d blast your head off.”
“Fletch?” Crystal’s voice quivered from the back of the handicap van. “Fletch?”
“She’s not a damned woman,” Fletch said, “and she’s not mine. She does answer the phone, when it rings. And I don’t much appreciate a city foulmouth like you shoutin’ barnyard language at a genuine country lady long distance!”
Mortimer’s eyes were blazing. “I’ll be damned!” He flung the empty shotgun onto the ground. “I’ll show these boys how I can take you apart with my fists!”
Fletch backed up. “Never mind. I suspect they know you can.”
Mortimer’s fists were raised. Wiry, at seventy four, he was ready to rain every combination of punches all over Fletch.
“Relax,” Fletch said. “I made you a hero.”
“A hero!” Mortimer exploded. “To who?”
“To the world!”
“The only people I cared about in the world I put in prison, thanks to you!”
“They were bad guys, and you know it.”
“They were my friends!”
Fletch turned his back on Mortimer’s fighting stance. Through his nose he inhaled deeply. “Fresh air. Don’t you just love it?”
“Fresh air!” Mortimer yelled. “What’s it good for? It smells like nothing! You know how long it’s been since I’ve smelled a bakery?”
Turning full circle, Fletch noticed Ricky had disappeared.
Haja still stood curious under the tree.
