HANGTREE/SLABTOWN
See Nate in the desert.
See the corpse of a meth cowboy, his head turned round the wrong way, tire tracks crushed across his chest. See torn fences and smashed skulls. See a man naked but for a plastic apron letting scrub tear the flesh of his ankles as he runs away from the madness. See a rolled-over pickup truck. And Nate on the floor of the desert, searching for his breath, staring up at a condor in a clear blue sky while Houser stands above him, reloading a strange little rifle.
See Nate’s silent lips move. Read them.
Polly, I’m sorry.
Nate had driven through the night to make Hangtree by dawn. He found some little AM radio station, some never-ending rock jam. Songs about space voyages and electric vampires. All of it faraway fuzzy like the signal had bounced off the moon. It fit the alien twists of the Joshua trees that hunched black against the star-filled skies.
He drove down an empty highway that ran parallel to some tracks, long trains coming up out of Mexico full of goods running the other way. The land was flat, dotted with a little scrub and old houses. It rolled on forever in every direction.
Hangtree seemed irradiated. Across a field on the side road something burned, maybe a shack or an old mobile home. It threw up black smoke. The smoke was perfect black, like it came from something burning away in its entirety. Packs of feral Chihuahuas ran the streets. They had missing eyes and mange. They scrapped. They ate trash out of the gutters. They humped on the road and in the dead grass where sidewalks should have been. People on the street came in two modes, too fat or too thin. They looked like they had been through the same atomic blast as the town.
Nate ate breakfast at the diner on the edge of town. He chewed stale toast and made murder plans. Now that he was here he had an ugly problem to deal with. Out here country stretched forever. It was forty, fifty miles either way before he’d hit highway junctions in either direction. To kill a cop in Hangtree, he’d need an hour’s head start on the getaway or they’d seal off the roads before he could reach safety.
Like you’re ever getting out of here, the ghost of his brother said in his head. You knew this was a one-way ticket when you bought the ride. An escape plan is a joke. Nate thought about Polly and made one anyway.
He finished his breakfast. He left a hundred-dollar tip. At the register he picked up a candy bar and a bottle of water. What the hell, make it two candy bars. As far as last meals went, he’d heard of worse.
He drove out toward Slabtown. He used the map Charlotte had put together from what she’d heard about the place. He rolled through hills on a gravel road. He saw a tree filled with shoes against the pure blue sky that stood in as Slabtown’s flag. He parked off the road. He walked up the hill and crouched down. He looked down on a half-dozen concrete slabs with trailers sitting on them. The residents had no problem advertising their insanity. A goat head pentagram had been painted on the desert floor. One lab, white vapors drifting from a chimney cut through the camper roof, marked the edges of its slab with totem poles of melted and charred doll heads. Broken glass shimmered like a dry river down one of the gulches. Broken-glass wind chimes hung from flagpoles clattered when the breezes came.
He watched the trailers long enough to pick out the signs of life. The camp seemed empty. Only the lab with the doll heads looked active. After a while a man came out, naked except for his plastic apron. The man sat down bare-assed on the desert gravel.
Nate sat on the crest of the hill with the sawed-off in his lap and thought about fate. About how it wasn’t the hand of God or anything like it. It was just the things that got passed down to you, the blood and the things the blood carried in it. And Nate could blame the blood or he could blame himself, but it didn’t matter either way. He had to murder this man, this stranger he’d never know, who’d come here riding his own river of blood, half swimming and half following the current best he could without drowning. Killing him would summon Houser out here to the far desert where Nate could murder him and maybe, just maybe, get away clean. Well, not clean. Never that again.
Polly, I’m sorry.
He went to the green monster. He popped the trunk. He loaded up the shotgun. He walked down the hill to Slabtown. He dodged fossilized dog turds. He waited for himself to slip into that other world. That world of slow time, of seeing everything. But it didn’t come. Something wrong. He wanted to see clearly, but all he saw was Polly.
He kicked in the door to the lab. Empty, although he’d just seen the aproned man go inside. Nothing but a bare-bones cook operation.
He checked the back window. Saw the aproned man run bare-assed across the desert. He had a big head start. Like he’d known Nate was coming.
They’d known he was coming.
It’s a trap.
Polly, I’m sorry.
Gravel roared out in front of the trailer. Nate moved to the front window. A cop car came from behind a hill on the far side of the encampment, a pink hairless cop behind the wheel. Two truckloads of Slabtown Aryan Steel cowboys with hunting rifles and handguns came behind it. Nate guessed they’d been deputized. Time didn’t slow down. It sped up so the breath moved too slow in his lungs. He was drowning in the desert air.
A trap a trap a trap. The song sang too loud for any other thoughts. The cop car stopped in a dust plume. One truck parked. The second one moved around to flank him.
Nate shot the pistol dry. The trailer window puked glass. Windshields shattered. Cowboys dove for cover. The truck out front rolled forward like the driver panicked and pushed the gas. The truck slammed into the trailer. Nate’s whole world shook. He went down on his ass. Bullets snapped over his head. Nate ditched the .38. He grabbed the shotgun and ran toward the back of the trailer. He went through the door feetfirst. He surfed it onto the ground outside. He fell. He landed in dead grass. He rolled. He bounced off a chain-link fence. He climbed it. He swung a leg over. The wire spine at the top of the fence drew a quick bright line of pain across his calf. He dropped to the other side. He ran full blast. Engine roars bounced off the hills. Tires growled through gravel. War whoops floated.
He tried to think his way out. He had to get to the green monster. He would have to drive it off-road into the desert.
Gunshot.
He fired back with the sawed-off. The blast of it knocked the sounds out of the world. Nothing but hummmmmm. He looked behind him. He saw cowboys sprinting. He saw the flanking truck roll around the side of the house heading his way. Gravel rolled in waves as the truck spun out. One of the cowboys fell out the back of the truck. He crunched headfirst. He did a severed-spine shimmy. Nate fired again. The truck swerved. It ran over the man they’d just dumped. The truck cracked into a big rock. Truck tires spun in the air. The cowboys in the back kept shooting. Death missed Nate by inches.
He ran into the desert behind the lab. He dodged cactuses. He climbed a hill. He crested it to find another cop car. Houser was waiting for him, a short black rifle in his hands. Nate lifted the shotgun. Houser was faster. The rifle coughed. Nate went down. He ate gravel. The nerves of his chest one bright red ball. He puked up all his air. His lungs seized up. He flopped onto his back. His fingers fumbled on his chest looking for the bullet hole. Nate held his fingers in front of his face. They came up clean. He couldn’t find the bullet hole. He ordered his body to scramble to its feet. It didn’t. Houser came into his view. The cop loaded another shot into the rifle. Nate watched him. He tried to talk. His vocal cords didn’t work. His voice came out nothing but rasps. It didn’t matter. What he was trying to say wasn’t for the cop anyway. It was for Polly. Houser raised the rifle to his shoulder. He pointed the rifle at Nate’s head point-blank.
Polly, I’m sorry.
Polly, I’m sorry.
Polly, I’m sor—