Francis and Emma followed the porch around the corner to a side door, stepping over motorcycle parts as they went. She pulled a single key from her jeans pocket and unlocked the door, led Francis into a large kitchen.
It felt stuffy and still, like a place uninhabited for a long time. Mismatched appliances, an iron potbellied stove next to a range from the 1980s and a fridge ten years older than that. Kitchen table with lighthouse salt-and-pepper shakers in the middle. Lots of Formica. Last year’s calendar showing an old-time sailing ship. It was stuck to the side of the fridge with a SEE ROCK CITY magnet.
Emma walked straight to a cabinet over the sink, opened it, and pulled out a half-empty bottle of Wild Turkey. She opened it and titled the bottle back, gulping loudly. She coughed, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Her eyes slid to Francis’s face. “Long drive.”
“A long couple of days,” he said.
She thought about that, nodded. “Yeah.” She held the bottle out to him.
“I’m really more of a cabernet sauvignon kind of guy.” A weak smile, half joking.
“Could you just not be a pussy right now, please?” She thrust the bottle at him again.
Francis took it. He hadn’t much experience with hard liquor. Maybe if he just gulped it quickly, he could get it over with. He tossed back a mouthful, then swallowed, but it went down wrong, scorching the back of his throat. He spasmed, almost coughing it up, but clamped his lips tight to keep from spitting it all out. Doing that made him gag and choke, and he coughed it out through his nose instead. It burned and splashed down his chin and the front of his shirt mixed with mucous. He coughed and coughed until he finally got control of himself, then wiped the whiskey snot from his chin and lips with his shirtsleeve.
Emma stared at him with her mouth hanging open. For a second it could have gone either way.
Then she threw her head back and laughed loudly and long. It was the first time Francis had seen her like this, carefree, all the pent-up stress leaking from her. Not a prissy, demure laugh. Full-throated and uninhibited. She wiped tears from her eyes, blew out a long cathartic sigh.
“You really know how to wow a girl, Frankie.”
“Francis.”
“Listen, there’s no delicate way to put this,” she said, “but you stink.”
“You mean that literally, don’t you?”
“Don’t take it personally,” she said, “but you slept in those clothes, and I think you know I’m right.”
He looked down at himself. “Yeah, I can’t really argue with you.”
“There’s a shower down the hall. You look like you’re about Dwayne’s size, so we can get you some clean clothes. His room is next to the bathroom, and you can help yourself.”
“Dwayne?”
“The guy my sister started seeing when she left her husband,” Emma told him.
“Is this somebody who’s going to walk in while I’m trying on his clothes and beat my ass?” Francis asked. “Because I’d like to avoid that.”
“No,” Emma said. “He’s dead.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” she said. “He was an asshole. Towels on the rack over the sink.”
Everything in the bathroom was old—chipped pedestal sink, small toilet, and a clawfoot tub with a floral shower curtain that circled the whole thing. The pressure was good, and the hot water stung his skin in the best way possible. Francis hadn’t realized how gross he’d felt before until he was suddenly clean.
He dried off, wrapped the towel around himself. He opened the bathroom door a crack and peeked out. Then he felt self-conscious about being self-conscious. He’d seen her in a towel, after all, so what was the big deal? He still felt self-conscious.
He darted quickly from the bathroom to the bedroom with the dead man’s clothes.
It was a small room with two windows that overlooked the barn. As in the rest of the house, the furnishings were old without quite being antiques. A double bed, neatly made with a patchwork quilt. A scuffed and scratched desk covered with baseball trophies ranging from high school to someplace called Kilian Community College. Posters, cheaply framed in plastic, hung on the wall, generic scenes of various natural wonders, the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Yellowstone.
There was also a framed eight-by-ten photo of a couple in their early thirties sitting together on a Harley-Davidson. Maybe it was the motorcycle now in pieces on the front porch. Francis assumed the guy on the Harley was the asshole. Dwayne. You couldn’t tell it from the picture—a big smile, hands gripping the handlebars, close haircut, three-day stubble. Maybe a couple of years older than the woman who had a reasonable resemblance to Emma. The sister, Francis guessed. Yellow sundress hiked up, flip-flops. One hand went around Dwayne’s waist, the other up for a shy wave. But compared to Emma, there was something softer in the face, the eyes less intense, as if she were still willing to give the world one more chance. There was some kind of drive-in burger joint in the background, and Francis felt like this photo was maybe taken on some vacation.
He went through Dwayne’s dresser and small closet for clothes. Faded Levi’s jeans, white socks, and Nike sneakers. Emma had been right. He and Dwayne wore the same size. Finding a shirt was a bit more of a challenge. Dwayne really liked flannel. Francis didn’t. There was also an assortment of black shirts with various hair metal bands. He couldn’t bring himself to wear a Poison or Ratt T-shirt. A guy had to draw the line somewhere.
And then he found it, all the way to one side in the closet. An unworn western shirt, the tag still on it. It looked like something from a Brooks & Dunn music video. Black with red piping and red embroidery on the shoulders and cuffs. Mother-of-pearl snap buttons. It was terrible.
Francis couldn’t resist.
He slipped it on, felt himself grin as he buttoned it up.
His eyes slid to the door. Hanging on a hook on the back was a leather jacket. He took it down, looked it over. Francis guessed this might have been Dwayne’s pride and joy, that he knew just exactly how cool he looked zooming down the road on his motorcycle with the jacket on. It was just worn enough to look cool, a simple collared jacket with a zipper up the middle. He shrugged into it.
A knock at the door. “Decent?” Emma’s voice from the other side.
“Yeah. Come in.”
She entered and was about to say something but stopped when she saw him. A warm smile spread on her lips. “You don’t look like you.”
“I’m afraid to ask if that’s a compliment or not.”
“You look less … forgettable.”
“Please. Stop. All this flattery is going to swell my head.”
She’d changed too. Francis realized she wore the same yellow sundress from the photograph. Except with combat boots. On her it worked. Angry punk girl goes on a picnic.
“Come on,” she said. “I need your help.”
Francis followed her down the hall, past a myriad of family photos on the wall. Some were more pictures of Emma’s sister and Dwayne. Others were old and faded, previous generations and distant relations. One of the photos caught Francis’s eye, a broad-shouldered man in an army uniform, buzz cut and sergeant’s stripes. Two little girls stood on either side of him, waist high.
“Was your dad in the army?” Francis asked.
She glanced back without stopping. “Yeah.”
The door at the end of the hall opened on a narrow stairway that twisted down into a basement. At the bottom of the stairs, Emma groped above her head in the darkness until she found a pull string and yanked on the single bulb. The walls were bare natural rock, floor smooth and wooden, thick beams crossing the ceiling overhead. A threadbare easy chair, a small desk, a single bed. Cave-like but livable.
“My sister said I could stay as long as I wanted after Dwayne died,” Emma explained. “She travels a lot. She’s in Mexico with some new guy right now. Anyway, I don’t get mail delivered here or anything, so it’s not likely I can be tracked here. Not yet anyway.”
“Can’t they find you through your sister?”
“Maybe, but not so far. She didn’t divorce her first husband, just ran off. Found Dwayne and moved in with him, not getting legally married or anything, no paperwork at city hall. When Dwayne choked on a chicken bone, she just buried him in the woods out back of the barn. Dwayne’s disability checks are direct deposit and all the bills are on auto pay, so she just let it ride.”
Francis waited for her to say she was joking.
She didn’t.
“Help me with this.” She headed for a lump against the far wall, covered by a blanket. “It’s heavy.”
She flung the blanket back and revealed a large footlocker. It was shut with a sturdy-looking combination lock. She grabbed the handle on one end. “Get the other side, will you?”
She hadn’t lied. It was heavy. They muscled it up the stairs and back down the hall, pausing in the kitchen to set it on the table.
Francis said, “I hope you appreciate I’ve traveled halfway across the nation and am now lifting this heavy-ass box of lost Nazi gold or whatever it is, and that I’ve been gentleman enough not to pester you for a lot of details about where we are, where we’re going, what it is you’re trying to do, why a suitcase full of underwear is so important, why thugs want to kidnap you, and why the government wants to arrest you.”
“Well, Frankie, if you recall, it was your idea to tag along, not mine.”
“Francis.”
She opened the refrigerator and pulled out a six-pack of Coors Light. She broke one off and handed the can to Francis. “Empty that can, please.”
“But—” He shrugged and took the can, popped it open, and sipped.
“Jesus, gun it, will you?” She popped one for herself, titled it back, and chugged it until it was empty. “Like that.”
Francis took a deep breath and began chugging the beer. He finished, turned his head and burped, tried to stifle it, and it came out his nose. “Damn. Again.” It didn’t burn as badly as the Wild Turkey, but it still made his eyes mist up.
“Okay, grab your end of the footlocker again,” Emma said. “And bring the empty can.”
She put the rest of the six-pack on top of the footlocker, and they carried it outside. They set it on a wide stump near the line of rusted cars. She broke off another can of beer and handed it to him. “Go.”
He balked. “Uh…”
Emma rolled her eyes. “Geez, okay, I’ll help.”
She popped it open and guzzled half, then handed the rest to Francis, who finished the can. She took the three empties and headed for the cars. She lined them up on the hood of a pickup truck from the early sixties, the Chevy logo prominent between the headlights. When she came back, she bent and spun the combination lock until it popped open.
She opened the footlocker and came out with a pistol. Francis looked past her and into the locker. Guns. Lots of them.
“What is that?” He nodded at the pistol in her hand.
“Sig Sauer P-250 subcompact .380.”
“Oh, that’s … Is that good?”
“We’ll see.”
She reached into the footlocker for a magazine, checked to see if it was full, then slapped it home into the butt of the pistol, chambered a round, and spread her legs into a shooter’s stance. She flipped off the safety and squeezed the trigger.
The sharp crack of the gunshot made Francis flinch. He looked at the beer cans. They hadn’t budged.
Emma’s lip curled into a snarl. “Shit.”
She spread her legs another inch apart, squeezed one eye shut tight, sighted down the barrel with the other. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The pistol bucked in her hands, and the first beer can spun away off the truck’s hood with a metallic tink. She fired twice more quickly, and the other two cans leaped into the air.
“That’s more like it.” Emma reached for another Coors Light. “We need more cans.”
She and Francis finished the six-pack, and Emma blasted them off the hood of the truck without missing a shot. She went and picked them up and lined them across the hood again.
When she came back to Francis, she offered him the pistol, butt first. “Your turn. Get a fresh magazine out of the footlocker.”
Francis didn’t reach for it. “I’m not sure how to work the thing.”
She made a trigger-pulling motion with one finger. “Pull the trigger here.” She gestured toward the end of the barrel. “Death comes out that end.”
Francis wasn’t convinced.
“Hold on.” She went back into the footlocker and came out with a revolver. “Smith & Wesson .38 police special.” She swung out the cylinder to check the load, then snapped it back into position with a flick of her wrist. “You just cock the hammer back and then shoot. Revolvers are a bit simpler for rookies.” She handed it to him. “Just make sure you keep it pointed downrange.”
He took the gun tentatively. As with the pistol he’d held briefly in Central Park, Francis was surprised by the weight of it. The gun was old but obviously well cared for. He spread his legs a little, trying to copy Emma’s stance, and held the revolver out with both hands. He aimed for the middle can, thinking if he missed a little, he still might hit one of the others.
The gun kicked when he squeezed the trigger, an unexpected adrenaline rush of pleasure surging through him.
He missed the cans.
And instead shot out the headlight of the next junk car over, a mint-green Buick Skylark with plenty of body damage.
Emma gave him the side-eye. “You were aiming for that, right?”
Francis smiled weakly. “Yes?”
He shot until he’d emptied the gun, sometimes digging up the turf in front of the pickup, other times the shots going high and vanishing forever into the forest. Emma reloaded the revolver for him, advised him on his stance, breathing, grip. Francis shot an entire box of ammo and never hit a can.
“For crying out loud, don’t they have guns in Ohio?”
Francis shrugged. “It wasn’t exactly a hobby in my family.”
“Let’s try something else.” She went to the Ford and reached into the tall grass between junk cars. She came out with a rusty paint can and set it on the pickup’s hood amid the beer cans.
Emma came back and said, “Okay, first thing is a bigger target.” She knelt in front of the footlocker. She removed the top shelf, revealing a compartment underneath. With the shortened barrel and folding stock, the shotgun still barely fit into the footlocker. She took it out and began thumbing in double-aught shells.
“That’s a little big, isn’t it?”
Emma grinned. “Nothing exceeds like excess.” She handed him the shotgun. “This is a Remington Model 870 Express twelve gauge with a six-plus-one-shell capacity.”
“Yadda yadda numbers and blah blah is what I just heard.”
“Pay attention,” she said. “Pump a shell in, and then thumb the safety forward to fire. F for forward and F for fire if that helps you remember.”
“Got it.”
“Brace it against your shoulder firmly,” she said. “It kicks like a son of a bitch. Take a couple of steps forward.”
He took three steps toward the paint can.
“More.”
Francis took two more steps.
“Now aim,” she told him. “People think you don’t have to aim a shotgun, but you do. Squeeze the trigger, don’t jerk it.”
Francis squeezed.
The explosion made the earlier pistol fire seem like popcorn farts, the kick pushing him back a step. The paint can erupted in metal chunks and paint, spinning and splattering the pickup white.
Emma came up behind him, patted his back. “That’s your weapon. Aim directly for the middle of your target’s torso. If you’re off a little, you’ll still hit something.”
“Something?”
Emma shrugged. “An arm?”
“I don’t want to shoot anyone.”
“You’re a nice guy, Frankie,” she said. “Whoever’s trying to kill you probably won’t be.”