CHAPTER 24
Almost Too Easy
Santo gently pressed the car's rear door shut until it clicked into place. The moon was high in the sky, making the hour too bright and the trees almost prehistoric.
Nat turned his head toward the noise of the car door closing and revealed a paranoid expression. Then he sank lower into his seat in response to the other doors opening and closing: first Julian, then Paisley, who also blinded him with the flash of the interior light. All that could be seen of Nat was his cowboy hat.
“Sit tight, Nat.”
“Easy for you to say.”
Santo scanned the area until his taut lips dissolved. Then he raised his arm and pointed at a familiar area. “Over there.”
He and Paisley moved into the thick shadows among the trees, leaving Nat and Julian exposed on the open field. Then Santo stopped, looked around to get a fix on his position, and began running in an effort to reconstruct last night's perceptions. Paisley was startled by his sudden departure but quickly perceived what he was attempting to do. He caught up with him, then stayed close behind.
Familiarity came with the frantic zigzagging around trees. It seemed to set off a radar, which led Santo to the spot he was looking for. He approached the base of the knoll and started clearing away the leaves. Paisley couldn't help asking the obvious question.
“Is that the place?”
It would have been easy to be sarcastic but Santo resisted the temptation. He raised one of the burlap sacks into view, instead.
“Wonderful.” Paisley snatched it from his hand. “You saved my ass, you know that, don't you?”
“The night's not over, compadre. Let's get the hell out of here. Nat should be ready to have a baby by now.”
Paisley chuckled.
They ran back to the car, jumped in, and listened to their hearts pounding as Nat drove away from the fairgrounds. Julian released a primal scream as soon as the car hit the safety of the pavement.
“Goddamn it! We did it. We did it!”
The pressure had been too intense not to respond to his emotional release.
“Yeeehaaa!” Nat cried as the vehicle rocked with the shouting and the tremors of four men.
“This was almost too easy,” Julian declared.
“You said that the last time. Look where it got us.”
Julian's expression flattened.
“Come on, Rick. Don't kill the party,” Nat said.
“When the man's right, he's right,” Julian said. “We've still got a long night ahead of us.”
The satisfaction of their achievement gradually faded and gave way to the tension of cigarette smoke. The uncertainty of their future made them inhale deeply and hold the smoke in their lungs longer than usual before releasing the gray vapor into the humid atmosphere.
They were going through the motions and were men enough to know it.