Vertical Coffin

Chapter 49

We sat on the floor of the old pumping station, the Coleman lantern hissing loudly, Sonny lying unconscious beside us. The Warthog fire mission was scheduled to begin in an hour. Then we'd put Sonny in the sand buggy and make a run for it. Royal was talking softly, his voice droning in the dimly lit room.

"Ain't nobody comes out here much. 'Round April, it gets so dry the jackrabbits is all totin' canteens." He shook his head sadly. "After Nam, didn't have no place to go. Seemed there was no place I fit in. Folks spittin' on me, callin' me baby killer. But how do ya tell some snotty draft dodger who never served that some o' them kids over there would ask ya for a Hershey, then trade ya a hand grenade for a candy bar? After I got back, seemed weren't nothin' much to give a shit about no more. I seen my share of misery and there's no doubt it changes ya. Out here I don't gotta explain it to nobody. It's just me and the range. Takes my chances, makes my livin'. If I pull the wrong wire, it's adios, motherfecker. Nobody's even gotta come to my funeral, 'cause there ain't gonna be nothin' left t' bury."

I listened to him ramble on like that, talking about South Carolina and Vietnam. Royal Mortenson was what you became if you gave up and withdrew. A lonely, angry old man who had retreated to a spot so unforgiving and desolate that he no longer had to deal with life. As he talked my thoughts about my own future sharpened. I knew one thing: Whatever happened, I didn't want my journey to end up there.

Royal suddenly switched to current events. "Blackie, he seems t' want you dead pretty bad."

"He hates cops," I said flatly.

"I can get behind that one," he joked, then spit some more tobacco juice.

Another bull's-eye.

"Course, bein' as you're a cop, I know y'all gotta do things a certain way. You probably got some penal code tells you when t' shit and how far out in the woods to bury it. But sometimes I've found things work better when ya skin yer own possums."

He looked at me with a sharp twinkle in his eye.

"I'm listening."

"Ol' Blackie, he's clever. He hacks into the Yuma Range Management computer, just like me. Gets the time of the firing missions. Them Marines are always right on time, Drop their loads, regular as Presbyterians. So he knows, just like me, when them planes is comin'. Once they start bombin', he's ducked down in a safe place like this one. Rest of the time, he's out there on the range, prospectin' C-four."

He looked up at me, shrewdness a cagey visitor on his weathered face. "So here's the way I see our choices. We could wait for that flighta Warthogs to come in at twenty-three fifty, then make our move, get yer Mexican to the hospital. But looks to me like this boy could go inta shock. Blood pressure gets too low and his heart could just plum quit. Not wantin' that ta happen, maybe you and me oughta advance up the timetable a smidge." He started picking at a loose thread hanging off his pant leg. "I seen ol' Blackie shootin' at you in Cactus West, then lettin' you chase him out by Kill Hill, down inta Jackrabbit Creek, leading ya in there right on time, so them Hornets could have their shot at ya."

"Are you telling me he knew they were coming?" I asked.

"Yep." Royal kept picking at the loose thread. "Knew the exact time and exact coordinates. Got 'em off the range computer. Took ya down there specifically so you could French-kiss a Maverick."

He snapped the thread off, then looked over at me. "If ya wanta get Pancho to that hospital a scootch ahead of schedule and keep him from singin' in the celestial choir, then I might have a way we fix ol' Blackie. Make it so he loses his head and makes a mistake. Or, if it pleases ya, we could arrange it so that happens the other way around."

Then Royal told me why he had the metal masts screwed into the front of the sand rails. The government strung low wires at various places on the range to make it dangerous for scrappers that were running fast without headlights at night. The EOD kept moving the wires to new locations so the scavengers wouldn't know where they were. The masts on the sand rails were up front to catch a missed wire and snap it.

" 'Course, I don't hit many of them things, cause I make it my business to know when them EOD boys change a wire. But ol' Blackie, he's in that big truck with a cab to protect him so he don't pay them wires no nevermind. Maybe we can arrange it so things happen a little different tonight."

He looked up and flashed his yellow smile. Then he told me his plan. When he finished, he looked over at me, his criminal blues blazing.

"Can't shoot the fecker, 'cause if EOD finds him fulla lead, it looks like a murder, and I got a lotta explaining to do. This way it looks like he just got careless and paid the price." Then he stopped talking and a crafty look followed.

" 'Course, with you being a cop, I wouldn't want to be facin' no bullshit trial afterwards. You want my help, you and me gotta come to an understanding."

I stayed quiet for a minute, thinking. He could call it an accident, but what he was really talking about was murder.

Then I thought about the last two weeks, and about Emo and Jo. I remembered how Emo's son Alfredo, had held onto Elana's hand at the funeral, standing tall, refusing to cry, knowing he and his mother would have to go on alone. I remembered Emo up on Smiley's porch, dead in the vertical coffin. Smiley had opened the front door and shot him at point-blank range. He'd had no chance.

I thought of Jo, lying in her hospital bed, hovering near death, a victim of the same situation. Only with Jo, I had to share the blame and it weighed heavily on me. I looked down at my shirt wrapped around Sonny's stump, his life slowly seeping out, his blood staining the cloth. I needed to get him out of here before he died. Add in Greenridge and Nightingale and the score was five to zip. I was getting pretty tired of losing.

I could feel Royal's eyes on me as I weighed the decision.

"We do this right, it'll go down slick as snot on a doorknob," Royal drawled. "But you and me, we gotta swear us a oath, first. We gotta swear to both take this piece'a business to the grave."

Then Sonny coughed and moaned, helping me make up my mind.

"Let's do this guy," I whispered.

Royal looked up, smiled widely, then nodded.

I put my Tac vest back on and we left Sonny lying on the futon with the empty pint of scotch now filled with water.

Royal and I exited the pumping station and stood outside in the moonlight.

"Things're goin' so good, I might have to hire me somebody to help enjoy it," he joked, then turned to me. "You know what you're gonna do?"

"Right," I replied, thinking I shouldn't be taking tactical orders from a withered old hick who was probably half insane. But as he'd said, this was his backyard. He knew the rules and the terrain.

Royal unscrewed the mast on the front of my sand rail and leaned it against the pumping station. "Now git, and keep your head down," he warned.

I nodded, fired up the buggy, and drove back into the drainage tunnel. Royal was already removing the mast from the second rail as I pulled out. The engine echoed loudly in the metal pipe. After a quarter of a mile, I stopped at the end of the tunnel and removed the bush blocking the opening. Then I drove back out onto the desert floor heading toward Cactus West. My forearm was aching where the shrapnel hit me and my fingers were going numb, but I ignored it and kept driving.

I pulled in five minutes later, parked off the main road in a bombed out adobe structure, and turned off the motor. I grabbed the AR-15, jammed in another C-mag, then found a spot up on a roof where I had a clear view of the main street. I proned out on the cold corrugated metal, put the assault rifle to my shoulder, and waited.

Half an hour later I heard the sound of Royal's rail way off in the distance. He was roaring toward Cactus West, the straight pipes blaring faintly across the desert, changing pitch every time he shifted gears. Then slowly, an octave lower, I began to hear the distinctive sound of the black Dodge. I pulled the night vision glasses up and focused them in the direction of the noise. The sand rail was out front, jumping berms and ridges, going about forty, spewing rooster tails of sand from its rear tires. About two hundred yards behind him, the Dodge Ram growled loudly in four-wheel drive, going about thirty-five, trying to stay up. In the strange green hue of the night scope the scene appeared ghostly and surreal.

Then the truck stopped and Smiley jumped out, threw the Browning down across the front fender, and started firing. The Browning was winking death silently, then the chattering bark of the huge weapon reached me a few seconds later. But Royal was almost in town. Smiley jumped back in his truck and continued the chase. Royal flew past my position and drove right out of town, dragging the truck like a tail behind him, much the same way Smiley had dragged Sonny and me down into Jackrabbit Creek.

In a few seconds he would pass my firing position. I tromboned the slide, kicking a.223 out of the breech to make sure I wasn't jammed, then waited. The black truck sped toward me, the engine growling ominously. I had the Dodge in my sights as it sped past. Then I opened fire, shooting at the tires, squeezing off at least fifty of the hundred rounds in my C-mag.

The truck tires all exploded. The Dodge shuddered and spun to a stop. Even before it came to rest, Smiley was out with the.50-caliber cradled in both hands. He swung it around towards my position and fired, but I was already up and running, jumping down off the roof. As the exploding shells tracked me, I dodged between the disintegrating adobe buildings and quickly reached my sand rail. Royal Mortenson was in the driver's seat with the engine running.

"Where'd you leave it?" I asked.

"Right on the edge of town. Fecker can't miss it." He downshifted, popped the clutch, and the rail exploded forward, out of the bombed-out building and up the street. Royal turned right onto Main and powered out of town.

Smiley, on foot, saw us make the turn and started firing. The slugs blew holes in the last building on the street as we swerved around it and headed out into the desert. I turned around in the passenger seat with the AR-15 in both hands and squeezed off a short burst at him, aiming high.

Smiley was firing the Browning at us from the edge of town where Royal had stashed the other sand rail, but we were out of range. He finally spotted the second rail parked over to his right, and moved cautiously to check it out, not sure if it was booby-trapped. Then, without much delay, he was in the driver's seat and coming after us, the big.50-cal propped in the bucket seat next to him.

We vectored toward the north end of the gunnery range. I thought Sonny had been driving fast, but nothing like Royal was driving now. We had to be going at least sixty, maybe more, screaming across the desert. When we hit a berm or a gully, it seemed we catapulted at least five feet in the air.

"Yeeeeeaaaaahhhhh!" Royal screamed every time the rail flew. We headed toward two large fenced-off areas where it looked like they dragged the unusable bombed-out truck carcasses. The fenced lots were about fifty yards apart and filled with torched wrecks.

"There she blows," Royal screamed, slowing slightly. "Give the sidewinder a little encouragement."

I fired off another burst and saw him swerve, then speed up, closing fast. He had somehow managed to prop the Browning up on the dash and now he squeezed off a short burst. It was surprisingly accurate. The chain-link fence on the left side of us sparked with bullets.

"Keep down, wires ahead!" Royal shouted as we roared between the two fenced lockups.

Smiley was a hundred yards back. Royal had his head way down, almost between his knees. I was laid out, facing backward, holding the AR-15, the sand rail throwing sand out behind us on both sides. I could see the glint of a wire flash past inches over our heads.

Unexpectedly, Royal screamed a bad joke at nobody, yelling it into the night air: "Hey, Blackie, ever hear the one about the fecker who bought hisself a blow job but forgot his wallet so he lost his head?"

Almost as he yelled it, Vincent Smiley's head flew from his shoulders, cut off clean by a bridging wire. It sailed up into the air like a bloody jumpball and landed ten feet away. The headless torso now drove the dune buggy, which swerved wildly, crashing into the fence.

"Yeeeeeaaaaahhhhh!" Royal Mortenson yelled. He slowed to a stop. We got out and ran back toward the spot where Smiley's torso had landed when his sand rail crashed. We were careful to duck under the taut wires that EOD had strung between the fences. They were nearly invisible in the dark.

The second sand buggy was still upright. Royal reached in and shut off the engine. Then we walked over and looked down at Vincent Smiley's head lying on the sand. The final expression on his face was a terrible, ugly grimace.

Royal leaned down and stared into the lifeless eyes. He giggled, then looked up with mad eyes that revealed to me, in that instant, the landscape of his tortured soul.