Escape Clause

25

As Peck was running away from the mugger in St. Paul, Virgil and Frankie were falling asleep, holding hands. Virgil didn’t intellectually blame himself for Frankie’s injuries, but emotionally-well, he was supposed to take care of her, and she was supposed to take care of him. She hadn’t gotten fully taken care of, so a bit of guilt was dog-paddling through his subconscious.

An hour and a half later, Frankie’s phone went off. Virgil started, his eyes popped open, and he asked, “What the heck is that?”

“My phone… you’ll have to get it… it’s on the floor next to the bed. I forgot to turn it off.”

Virgil walked around the bed and picked it up, as the ringing stopped. “It’s Sparkle,” he said. “She hung up.”

“She knows better than to call now. There’s trouble,” Frankie said.

Virgil’s phone started ringing on the windowsill. Virgil picked it up: Sparkle.

“Yeah?”

“Virgil! Are you in the Cities, or…”

“At my house, in Mankato.”

“We’re locked in the back bedroom-people are running through the yard here. I’ve got Bill and the kids with me…”

“What do you mean, running through the yard?”

“What I said! People are running through the yard. We can’t see them, but we heard somebody yell. We don’t know what to do.”

“Stay locked up. If something bad happens, call me again,” Virgil said. “I’m on my way, but it’s gonna be fifteen minutes.”

“Hurry, Virgil!”

–

Frankie asked, “What?”

“There’s somebody running through the yard at your place, and no, you’re not coming. I’m gonna have to hurry and the ride would kill you. I’ll call you every five minutes.”

Frankie tried to get out of bed, but groaned and sank back down. “Don’t get hurt, Virgil. Don’t get hurt.”

Virgil pulled on his jeans and a Polo shirt and his running shoes, and he was out the door. In the garage, as the door rose up, he opened the back of the truck, unlocked the storage bin and took out his twelve-gauge and a box of FliteControl double-ought shells, and a high-powered LED lantern.

He stashed the gun and lantern in the passenger-side footwell and fifteen seconds later he was out of the garage and out of the driveway, hit the flashers, and rolled out of town at sixty miles an hour. Nice night, but hot, and late, not many cars on the road.

He drove north on 169 for a couple of miles, and then cut cross-country to Frankie’s place. Since he drove it every day, he knew every pothole and bump in the road, but not every deer. He jumped a couple of does a few miles out, eye sparkle and a chamois-colored flash in a ditch. Hit his brakes as they ran through his headlights and bounded over a fence, still alive.

He was driving one-handed, talking to Sparkle on the cell phone in his other hand: there’d been more people running through the yard. Were they trying to frighten Sparkle and Bill, or was something else going on?

Virgil came up to the farm and saw, parked on the side of the road, a half-dozen vehicles, including one older pickup and five modest cars. His first thought was illegals: they looked like vehicles driven by illegal immigrants.

He drove down the driveway, and far ahead, saw a running man in a red shirt disappear into the field past the barn. At the house, he gathered up the shotgun, loaded it, and the LED lantern, then hopped out of the truck and crossed the porch and said into the phone: “Sparkle, I’m outside.”

A minute later, Bill popped the door, with Sparkle and the youngest three of Frankie’s kids crowded behind him.

“Who are they?” Bill asked.

“I don’t know, but I saw one of them,” Virgil said. “You guys stay here, I’m going to take a look.”

“I’ll come with you,” Bill said.

“I really don’t-”

“I’m coming,” Bill said.

Virgil was happy to hear that and didn’t protest any further. “C’mon then. They went out behind the barn.”

–

Virgil told Sparkle to lock the doors and then he and Bill crossed the yard to the barn and Virgil walked past it, the shotgun pointed in the air, and then they heard people talking… female voices… and laughter.

“Ah, shit,” Virgil said.

“What is it?”

“The cars were kind of messed up, so I thought it might be illegals,” Virgil said. “You know, somehow pissed off about Sparkle. But it’s not.”

“What is it?”

“Best guess? High school kids skinny-dipping in the swimming hole. There are a few of them that know about it-they’ve been out here with Frankie’s older boys.”

Bill listened and sighed, and said, “I think you’re right. I’m sorry we got you up. We didn’t even think of that possibility, with people being beaten up.”

“I don’t blame you,” Virgil said. “I want to go down and make sure.”

“Maybe I should go tell Sparkle…”

Virgil held up the phone. “You can if you want. But I could call her.”

“Maybe I’ll come, then. Call Sparkle and tell her to call Frankie.”

–

Virgil called Sparkle as they walked across the end of the hayfield in the moonlight, then walked past the “Occupied” sign and down the path to the swimming hole. It was dark in the hay field, and even darker back in the woods, but the people in the swimming hole had flashlights, so there was a bit of ambient light around, and Virgil and Bill emerged at the swimming hole where people were laughing and splashing in the cool water, and Virgil called, not too loud, “Hey, everybody! It’s the cops.”

Somebody groaned, “Oh, no,” and Virgil turned on the LED lantern and found ten or twelve faces peering up at him from the water. A case of beer sat on the bank and the light scent of marijuana lay easily on the hot summer air. One of the girls, who wasn’t totally covered by the water, said, “We’re not causing any trouble. We wanted to get out of the heat.”

“Yeah, well, you scared the heck out of the people in Ms. Nobles’s house,” Virgil said. “She was attacked a couple of days ago and beat up, and you know, running through the yard like that… they were afraid it was more trouble.”

One of the boys said, “Jeez, I heard about that. You’re Virgil, right?”

Virgil said, “Yeah.”

The kid said, “I’m Cornelius Cooper’s son. We used to come down here with Tall Bear. I thought it’d be all right. I’m sort of responsible.”

“Okay. It’s Chris, right? Listen guys, nobody drown, okay? And be quiet when you leave. Don’t run and yell, just sneak out.”

The Cooper kid said, “We can do that. Thanks.”

“And call ahead the next time,” Bill said.

There was a chorus of “Yeahs,” and a few “Thanks, dude.”

Virgil turned off the light and said, “Have a good time. Nice night for it. And… don’t pee in the creek.”

–

Virgil and Bill walked out of the woods, and Bill said, “You didn’t say anything about the beer. I’m not sure they were all twenty-one.”

Virgil laughed and said, “I don’t think any of them were twenty-one. Chris Cooper was a senior last year, I think. I’m not really a good guy for arresting people for underage drinking. Or weed, either.”

“You have some experience with that?”

“A lot of experience, actually,” Virgil said. “You don’t want to talk to my old man about it-he still gets pissed.”

“Say, did you see the… ah, never mind.”

“Yeah, I did,” Virgil said. “Hormones gone wild.”

“Beer, weed, and skinny-dipping,” Bill said. He sounded happy about it. “It is just sort of Minnesota in the summertime, isn’t it?”