For the living, there is only one way out of Rockmuse: State Highway 117. I had one hundred miles ahead of me that could take a few hours or a few days. Fortunately, leaving Rockmuse meant I had to pass the Rockmuse Shell, and it seemed prudent to top off my diesel tanks to accommodate what could be some long periods of idling.
I was done being social and I used my Visa at the pump rather than go inside and get the locals’ discount. No one else was at the pumps, and Eckhardt was alone inside, consumed with some remodeling project that involved dismantling the counter. Since his wife had left him a few years earlier he spent most of his time at the station. Without the countertop I could see the La-Z-Boy recliner through the front window. This was where he sat and rocked through most of the night nursing a beer and growing bitterness. I could hear the saw and the hammer pounding and hoped he was busy enough he wouldn’t notice me. I almost made it.
He waved through the glass and I ignored him. He waved again and finally peeked out the front door and yelled my name. I waved back and ignored him some more. His voice was almost happy and enthusiastic. “Ben Jones! Get your ass in here, I have something to show you!”
I unhappily complied as soon as my fueling was completed. With my head only halfway inside, I said, “I have to get on the road, Eckhardt. What’s up?”
“This,” he replied, tipping the front of the counter up so I could see it. There was a hole about twelve inches square about waist level for anyone standing in front of the counter and register. The hole was covered with black screen-door wire.
I had no idea what “this” was and didn’t care. “Nice. I have to get going.”
Eckhardt turned the piece of counter so I could see the other side, or what would be the inside when it was all put back together again. What he was showing me seemed to be the perfect ending to a full, sad, and unproductive day. He had mounted a sawed-off shotgun on angle iron. The screen-door wire hid the barrel from sight. I couldn’t remember ever seeing him so damned happy.
“Get in here and take a look-see!”
I told him I was in a hurry and that I could see fine from where I stood in the door. I was in more of a hurry with every passing moment.
“Suit yourself,” he said, and began to give me a detailed description of his plan, which was unnecessary. He had anointed himself the Thomas Edison of death. “The trigger will be wired to a dead man’s floor switch. I can fire with my foot. Or if the son of a bitch shoots me it will go off the second my foot moves. Someone tries to rob me they’ll get what-for damn quick.”
My forehead dropped against the cold glass of the door and I took in his fiftysomething potbellied righteous Christmas smile. At least Roy’s tire doghouses weren’t going to kill anyone. Knowing better, I felt compelled to give Eckhardt a history lesson.
“Eckhardt, you’ve only been robbed once,” I said. “And that was seven years ago.”
“Don’t matter. It could happen. I know it will again. I’ll be ready.”
There was no doubt in my mind that Eckhardt would be rewarded for his faith. If you’re looking for trouble you will almost always find what you’re looking for, because it is also looking for you.
The question of what Eckhardt was thinking about all the lonely night hours and years in his recliner at the Shell station convenience store was now obvious and it wasn’t really about getting robbed—it was about the opportunity to kill someone. There isn’t a damn thing you can say to someone like that but I said it anyway.
“It’s illegal,” I said. “And what if you have a heart attack or something and your foot slips off and you kill an innocent person? That shotgun will blow them all the way into the cooler.”
“Illegal my ass!” he shouted. “The government can’t take away my right to protect myself and my property.” Then he perked up. For a second he actually seemed to think about what I said. “You’re right, Ben. I’ll need something like a safety. I don’t have so many customers I can kill one.” He thought that was funny.
“That’s the spirit,” I said, and let go of the door and practically ran to my truck.
I pulled out on the highway so fast my truck fishtailed a little but I kept my foot down all the way out of town, shifting up through the gears as quickly as I could. The thermos of coffee and sandwiches flew off the passenger seat onto the floor. Not far from the City Limits sign I roared into a thick sheet of blowing snow backlit by the setting red sun lingering over the Wasatch Mountains. It was like disappearing behind a peaceful pink curtain and I could feel myself being closed off from civilization as the town and my day faded into my side mirrors. The clock on my dashboard read 6:20.
There was always a chance Eckhardt would shoot himself before he managed to kill someone. We are the trouble we seek. His big robbery had been nothing more than a teenage boy who had stolen a relative’s pickup and was hell-bent on getting into Price to see a girl he had just learned was pregnant with his child. Fear, youth, and stupidity shouldn’t equal a death sentence. The kid didn’t even really want money; he wanted gas because he had stolen a pickup with an empty tank. At first he didn’t even have a gun. When Eckhardt told him no way on the gas, he went back to get the .22 rifle that happened to be hanging on the gun rack of the stolen pickup. The two just stood there and glared at each other until the boy broke down and started crying and eventually took off hitchhiking down 117 under a broiling sun.
Highway 117 is the main reason why there is so little serious crime in Rockmuse. The escape route is a hundred miles of desert highway with plenty of time to alert the county sheriff or Highway Patrol, who could just have a Fraternal Order of Police picnic while they waited for your criminal ass to show up at the junction with US 191. Odds were that if Eckhardt had his shotgun booby trap back then the kid would have died right where he stood and the baby would have never known its father. As it turned out, he got a deferred judgment on the vehicle theft when it was reduced to trespassing. Some community service and counseling were ordered.
Seven years ago Eckhardt was a more reasonable if not kind man and allowed the judge to dismiss the attempted robbery. Maybe his former wife had a hand in convincing him to let the boy off easy. The next boy or man or woman or unlucky pet wouldn’t have a chance. I made a note to myself to never stand in front of old Eckhardt’s convenience store counter as long as I knew that shotgun was pointed at my privates. Shit does, in fact, have a way of hitting the fan, and the chances of getting sprayed with it only increase if you stand in front of the fan. Unfortunately, this was a lesson I was still in the process of learning—that and minding my own business.