He was, in fact, dressed and ready to head out for the morning. He wore a tan linen suit that breathed and was comfortable in both hot and mild weather (so the salesman had noted). He intended to walk out to the country, to the solitude of a creek on a back portion of his land, to pick a site for a new house that he intended to ask Atalanta to help build with him.
He pulled the front door shut, turned the key in the lock, and then walked down the lane. As he got to where his drive met the road, a grey sedan pulled out of a cloud of dust on the horizon. Mr. White stood and watched it approach. It pulled up to him and a man with a head the size of a watermelon leaned out the window.
"Hey buddy, is this the road to Mandalay?"
Before Ernest could reply that it was not, he felt himself grabbed by either elbow. Two very large men lifted him, threw him in the back seat of the car, and then wedged in on either side. The driver put his foot to the gas and they flew down the road, the old grey house quickly vanishing behind them.
The two men on either side of him had strong, youthful, bulldog faces, and they wore rural clothes. Their expressions showed the unfocused aggression of youth.
"Abducting me to an FFA meeting?" Mr. White said.
"Hah – he thinks he's funny." One of them said. "The boss said he thought he was funny."
"Get a blindfold on him!"
"Good God!"
They quickly blindfolded him and tied his hands in front of him with a length of cloth.
"You won't be messing up the congressman's speech today!" one said.
"Shut up!" the driver said. "You two are not supposed to talk."
All was were quiet for several minutes, and White could feel the country roads rise up and curl and swerve away beneath them. He tried to keep track of the directions they were going, but it got to be dizzying. At one point the driver had to ask directions of one of the two men in the back seat, and White felt emboldened to speak.
"Can I ask where we're going?" he said.
"Someplace where you can't interfere with the decent folks around here anymore," the driver replied. "Now no more talking til we get there."
"I can pay you ten times as much as whoever you're working for."
"I said shut up!" the driver said.
Mr. White leaned back dolefully and resigned himself to the journey and the stink and the pressure of the big thugs on either side of him. He remembered the question the driver had first asked to lure him to the car, and some lyrics from "The Road to Mandalay" rose up in him:
"By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea,
There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me..."
"He sings pretty," one of the men said.
"Don’t let him get in your head – Mister, you hush!"
White slumped down. He wished they hadn’t put the poem in his head if he wasn’t going to get to recite it or at least sing the popularized version.
The smell of the air from the countryside began to change from grass to pines, and when it seemed like they had been driving for an hour White felt would explode if he did not pipe up one more time.
"Can you tell me where we're going now?"
"No – you'll find out soon enough."
"Look here, let's make this easier on all of us. Let me write out a check for $1000 to each of you right now and we'll call it a day. Who should I make the checks out to?"
"Don't tell him your names!" the driver yelled.
"But $1000 bucks!"
"I can't drive with all these arguments coming from the back seat. One of you take your shirt off and stuff it in his mouth. I don't want to hear another peep out of him."
"Good Lord, if you're going to do that, please use my pocket handkerchief. It’s clean."
"You're going to learn a little lesson about messing with people who have the people's best interests in mind."
White sat silent the rest of the trip. In perhaps an hour more their drive ended and one of the young men took his blindfold off. He blinked then saw that they had arrived at a lonely shack standing in perpetual twilight beneath thick pine trees. And suddenly he noticed he could smell the tang of the river.
They open the door to the shack and shoved him in. There was a layer of dust inside as if it hadn't been lived in for decades. It was barely big enough for the three chairs, the pot bellied stove, and the cot it contained. Above the cot on a shelf were three books: an old Sears catalog, the Bible, and a Farmer's Almanac.
They shoved him down roughly in a chair by the stove and gave him to understand that they would all be waiting there for some time. After long minutes of bored silence, White volunteered to teach them several time-passing card games if they'd just untie his hands. The leader declined.
*
Even as the car ferrying Mr. White had been distancing itself from his house, the town's streets and sidewalks were beginning to fill with crowds of the young and old, rich and poor, rural and urban. The sun rose to its mid-morning fullness like a yeast roll.
The early hours of the morning would be for business, as were all Saturday mornings in town, though on this special day visitors were also presented with the opportunity to hear edifying County Extension lectures or walk past new labor-saving products for the housewife being demonstrated by speed-talking salesmen whose hands performed a delicate ballet with tools of dangerously sharpened tin.
And of course everywhere were facts about the dam. It would be X feet long, X feet high, consume X thousand cubic feet of concrete and Y thousand man-hours in its construction, would divert X million gallons of water, employ XYZ workers, cost X millions of dollars, bring XYZ income to the regional economy for X decades to come. It was presented as a nexus of unimaginable numbers and unquantifiable dreams. It would leap from bank to bank as from the gloomy past to bright future, from servant to master of Nature, from isolated farmer to international businessman. All about the town square visages of politicians beamed from signs in triumphant photos taken when they were still young and toothsome and smooth, full of surprise at themselves and at the world. Such images were flattering if not exactly fair substitutes for the jowly, tobacco-stained bureaucrats who would today rouse themselves from slumber, swoop in to harvest accolades, and remind citizens who it was that had their best interests in mind.
The streets of town began to be pervaded with a jolly atmosphere, and the great circus town that had been set up in the lot beyond the depot stood ornate but silent and waiting. Crowds milled in between the stalls and admired the oriental and arabesque scenes and painted visages that leered back at them, wondering how and when they would come to life.
Well beyond all this Birchola stood on the stoop in front of her house. She could hear the noise of the fair and the commotion of the crowd, but it only repelled her. Her lidded sloe eyes were watching for a particular car to come up the street when they were instead affronted by the appearance of a primer-colored pickup truck. Az Sweet jumped out.
"That boy aint got no design on you but the basest!" Az Sweet spat, as if continuing some argument from days or weeks before. He was tall and his dark hair fell across his brow like a raven's wing.
She had met Az at White's party and the angry young man had been haunting her ever since, showing up in her proximity but never talking to her. He had believed his power to brood, glare, and sulk would eventually attract her to him with a magnetic power normally reserved for planets, but he had been mistaken. Now that word of her imminent departure had gotten around to everyone except Port Gil and her Aunt, he decided upon direct confrontation.
He set a hand on her shoulder but she pulled away from him. "Well maybe basest's all I'm shooting for," she said. She stood with her arms folded and a tan and red pressed board suitcase on the dirt road beside her.
"What's with the suitcase?" he said.
"What the hell you think's with the suitcase?"
"Look," he said, "if what you want is to see the world then why not
go with me instead? That's what I want too. I'm sick of this place."
She huffed, then looked at him. "You? Why, you aint got enough courage to even let go your momma's skirt or your daddy's reputation."
"My daddy, he's just a blowhard with old grudges. All I got is a crummy job sweeping up at the VFW. I'm ready to go out into the world and fine somebody."
She looked at him. He just stared back in his defensive, angry way, but then his raven eyes softened just a fraction at the edges.
For some reason this made her angry. "I don't believe you!" she said and turned.
"Dang it!" he said, "You listen to me. Old Mr. Slickster there is gonna pick you up then leave you where you don't know no one and he's gonna make every one of the warnings your momma's ever given you come true. I may not know much but I know that. With me you'll see the world and you'll be defended, in the company of a, a..."
"A what?"
"A gentleman," he said.
"Aint no such thing anymore."
"You just try me. Give me the name of somebody who ever wronged you and I'll go beat him up. Right now. You'll see. How 'bout that Mr. White? He's wronged everyone in general, the way I see it."
She smiled a little. His face was red and earnest. "Doan you go sassing that Mr. White," she said. "He may be a fool, but he got some plans for me I might just take him up on."
"Plans?" Az asked with all the suspicions of an amorous rival.
"Just you relax," Birchola said. "Plans for my mind – an offer of an education. No designs on any parts yoar int'rested in."
Az Jr. reddened. "Now see here! I know how to treat a lady. Dang it, do you have to pick a fight about everything?"
"Okay," she said, "okay. I'm sorry."
"An' I got a truck."
"That yoar truck?"
"Sure is. What you think I've been slavin' all summer for? Car parts is what. One of those VFW guys had an old truck, said I could fix it in my spare time – said I could have it if I could fix it. It was a good deal for both of us. He'd hand me tools and I'd listen to all his old war stories. I reckon he must've killed about 10,000 Huns. Truth is I lost count."
"So it runs good? Aint no things gonna fall off it ten miles down the road?"
"Damn straight it runs!" he said belligerently.
"All right," she said.
"All right what?"
"Start it up and let's go."
"Jest like that?" He looked flabbergasted.
"I said what I said."
"But what about this Mr. White's offer?"
She turned and looked at him. "After I turned down his offer yesterday I got to thinking and made him a counter-offer: I tole him I'd let him pay for my schoolin' if he'd throw in a swimmin’ pool for Aunt Maye's manse and build a substantial hut for Port Gil too. And he agreed, so I agreed. I ship out of here in two weeks' time, then I don't have to hear them two warble on about their families' lost glory no more. Now can we please see how much of America we can take in before this bucket of bolts breaks down? I reckon I could use the company of a chaste and protective escort like yourself – or should I set and wait for the salesman's jalopy like I planned?"
Az Jr. flipped his hair off of his brow. He opened the door for her like a gentleman, and she swept back her skirt and climbed in. He shut her door, got in on his side, and shifted roughly into gear. Then the truck rattled away.
Chapter 16
The wait in the shack proved to be long and tedious, and everything White did accentuated the fact. He questioned and complained until he secured the right to flip through the Sears catalog, though his hands were still bound. He turned to the corsets section in hopes of distracting the farm boys and turning this to his advantage. Then be began singing:
'Er petticoat was yaller an' 'er little cap was green,
An' 'er name was Supi-yaw-lat – jes' the same as Theebaw's Queen,
An' I seed her first a-smokin' of a whackin' white cheroot,
An' a-wastin' Christian kisses on an 'eathen idol's foot:
Bloomin' idol made o'mud –
Wot they called the Great Gawd Budd –
Plucky lot she cared for idols when I kissed 'er where she stud!..."
"He’s sayin’ poetry again."
"Well tell him to stop it."
"I did!"
The leader lit a cigarette and suddenly shrugged. "Hell, let him if he wants. We only have to wait a little longer. We have a gentleman coming in to fix our problem."
"Fix? Fix how?" one of the farm boys asked.
"You’ll see."
"I thought we were just keeping him out of the way until the Congressman's speech was over," the other farm boy said.
The man shook his head. "That wouldn't solve anything for long." He exhaled a long plume of smoke. "This man has to be resolved more permanently. And remember, we're all in it together now. We're only getting out of here if we stick together and see this thing through."
The second farm boy stood up, red-faced. "I didn't sign up for this."
"Yeah, just give us our money and we'll leave."
The man in the suit stood in the doorway. "I'm afraid it's not that simple. As of now we're all guilty of kidnapping. None of us can get out of here free and clear until my man arrives and finishes his work."
"You're serious?"
"Yes, but trust me, this man never leaves a trace. Let him do his job, and not a one of us will ever get in trouble."
White turned to the one farm boy. "If you let me go now I promise to never breathe a word of this."
"You hush up!" the leader said.
"I don't know about this..." the second boy continued, his huge piggy head suddenly wrinkling in ruminations.
"Look, do you both want to go to jail for kidnapping? Because that's what'll happen if he lives."
"No, I don't want to go to jail, but you tricked us," the first boy continued.
"Tricked nothing – you got your $100 bucks."
"One hundred dollars? Good Lord!" Mr. White said. "Let me add a zero to that. Let me make it a thousand for each of you, with a promise of no testimony against you, ever."
"My uncle said you were no good," the second boy said to the leader. "He said to steer clear of you. But I sure needed the money..."
"You swear on your father's grave you'd never tell on us?" the second boy said, turning a suddenly serious face to Ernest.
"I swear."
The leader let a quaver enter his voice. "Don't you know he lies? He always lies. Hell, he killed a man in Europe. Everyone knows that."
"I know he grew up around here and you didn't, and you talked us into kidnapping him and now you're trying to tell us what to do."
Both of the farm boys turned their backs on their leader and faced Mr. White, but the man in charge took a gun out. He cleared his throat and pointed it at them. The turned around.
"Let me make one thing clear," he told them, "This man I have coming can make three bodies disappear as easily as one. Now don’t you worry about him leaving any evidence after this man here is taken care of. He’ll make it look like a suicide, no questions asked. Succumbed to his own morbidity – drowned himself in the river."
White’s face turned ashen.
"I aint takin’ no part in that," one of the boys said.
"Rush him, Bill!" the other boy said, and they sprang at him. The leader staggered back and pulled the trigger. An explosion came but went wide, and the boys were immediately upon him.
White watched the struggle. The men rolled on the floor violently then suddenly rose to their feet. White sprang aside just as one boy cast the thug against the iron stove. The leader collapsed but pulled the boy with him as he did so. The boy's skull crashed against the cold metal as well, and the two men fell on each other, the farm boy making a lowing noise like a cow before his eyes rolled back.
White and the remaining young man stood on either side of the pile, agape at what had just occurred.
"I
owe you and your friend a debt of gratitude," Ernest said. "I thought I was a goner for sure..."
But he was interrupted. "Hold it there a second," the boy said, his eyes narrowing. "What else you got on you that's worth anything besides them cufflinks and watch?"
White's eyes widened in disbelief. "Why, your life for one thing," he said.
It was then that the boy noticed that White had freed his hands and picked up the gun in the course of the scuffle. He pointed it at the boy and motioned him to take a seat.
"That's better," Mr. White said. "And now let me say this: I'll keep mum on your and your friend's behalf, but I'd advise you to tie up your leader and then get the hell out of here before his hired killer arrives and doesn't like what he sees."
The boy nodded. White patted down the unconscious body of the leader and took his wallet and his car keys. Then he slowly backed out the open door. He paced backward maybe 20 feet and then turned and ran to the car. He fired it up and slipped it into gear, but his limbs were shaking so badly that when took his foot off the clutch it roared twenty feet forward and slammed into a tree. He tried backing it up but the right front wheel had snapped and cocked sideways, so White threw open the car door and ran. Outside the shack’s clearing the trees grew thick, and he plunged deep into them and ran until the breath was out of him. Then he fell to his knees.
As he caught his breath he assessed his surroundings. He figured from the elevation and the trees that he was in the hills twenty-odd miles northeast of town. Given the anticipated arrival of the killer, he thought better of doubling back and following the road. He decided instead to head downhill, despite the precarious slopes, to find the wide green water. He knew the railroad hugged the river. There might be houses there and, depending on how far north he was, at least one small town and depot. So he made his way carefully down the leaf-mated slopes, the ground now and then sliding from under his feet, or the roots rising up to trip him.
And within an hour or so he made his way down until he heard the water’s chatter and its smell became stronger, and after clearing one small rise he saw the wide green flow below him, lazy and close, and he saw a few dark houses hugging its banks like wet leaves, not quite daring to peep from beneath the clumps of trees.