Hide Away, page 2
“Every one of you,” she said, in a good-natured way, shaking her finger at Wright and the truckers. “Good for nothing philanderers and layabouts.”
“That’s the spirit, Sam,” one of the truckers said. “You tell ‘im.”
Regulars. Small town. That was another part of what he liked about these kinds of places. Everyone knew everyone and they were all pretty friendly about it.
From the kitchen came the sounds of scraping and sizzling. The succulent smells of fry cooking wafted around the room.
“Well,” Wright said. “I guess you’ve got me pegged. I should get my check and get on the road. Already feel like I’ve worn out my welcome.”
Sam the waitress’s face fell. “No, no, I’m sorry.”
“She was just ridin’ you, son,” one of the truckers said. “Don’t pay no attention.”
Wright was already on his feet had his wallet out, leafing through the bills. He was flush for the moment, which was a good feeling. A couple of weeks loading lumber at a yard to the south, where they’d taken care of accommodation too. They’d paid well and hadn’t bothered too much with letting Uncle Sam know about the transaction.
He put a twenty and a five beside his plate. “Keep the change,” he said.
Sam the waitress grinned at him. “I’ll do that. You come on back anytime.”
“Maybe I will.”
“I got a friend I could set you up with. She’s sweet and smart and nice enough looking. She’d be good for a man like you.”
“Leave him along, will ya’?” the other trucker said.
“I’m just trying to help people get along in life.”
“I appreciate it,” Wright said. “And next time I’m through I might take you up on your offer.”
Through the diner’s windows he saw an SUV heading across from the road. A late model Jeep. Moving slow, through the diner’s parking lot and making for the gas station.
The Jeep was moving slow on account of flat tires. They burbled and flapped against the tarmac. The rims scraped, making a terrible sound. The driver seemed wild and angry.
Well, who wouldn’t be with a couple of flats at the same time?
Chapter Three
Outside the diner, there was a bite to the air. Wright pulled his nylon jacket closer and zipped it up. Before he got on the road, it might be worth a visit to a menswear store to grab a winter coat.
The Jeep had come to a stop alongside the entry to the gas station’s workshop. Wright saw now that the vehicle actually had four flats. Must have been up on some rough road.
The driver got out and was wearing no pants, just shirt and a jacket. Not even any shoes. Pretty odd. Maybe things had gotten real bad up there off roading or whatever he’d been up to. There was mud along the side panels of the Jeep.
Maybe the guy needed help. Maybe he’d been attacked.
Wright adjusted his small backpack and strolled across. No hurry. Just watching as things progressed.
The guy at least had boxers on. Better than briefs. His legs were scrawny. He was heading to the workshop office. It was a small town gas station. No big plastic sign on an impossibly tall sign, no flashy convenience store behind the forecourt. Just a few pumps and old faded oil change signs.
There was kind of an alley that ran between the gas station workshop and the side of the diner. Weedy, with Hurricane wire fences farther along. A few Dumpsters and abandoned cars.
Wright crossed the rougher alleyway surface. The guy was leaning against the workshop office’s doorframe. He shivered with cold. He looked kind of beat up.
It was clear that the Jeep’s tires had been slashed. And then driven on an awful long way. Amazing that the vehicle had been able to move at all. The tires were all chewed up.
There was nothing inside the vehicle at all. Maybe the guy had stolen it. Maybe law enforcement were on their way already.
“Four tires,” the guy was saying through the door of the workshop. “Yes. All four. Can you do it?”
Hard to say what the situation was here. A drug deal gone wrong? Some crazed ex-girlfriend getting her own back. Or not crazed at all, just very pragmatic.
“I don’t care,” the guy said. “I just need to be able to drive it.”
He waited a moment, listening.
“All right. I need to get to Western Union to get some money. Yes, I’ll come right back and pay. Once I’ve got some pants. And shoes.”
Another pause.
“Deposit? Look, my wallet’s gone. Make the Jeep the deposit.”
The guy’s shoulders slumped. Defeated. He took a breath and glanced back.
“What’re you looking at, huh, buster?” he said to Wright.
The guy had a bright, icy blue eyes. His hair was buzzcut and he had a thin mustache. Couldn’t have been more than thirty, but had an age and a weariness to him beyond those years.
“Huh?” he said. “You just gonna stare?”
“Seen some strange things in my travels,” Wright said. “Guy without pants getting out of jalopy with four slashed tires. Well, that just adds to the list.”
“Mind your business.”
“Thinking of doing that, for sure.” Wright glanced at the road. A truck meandered by. “I’m going to hitch a lift. But I guess with you is out of the question.”
The guy just stared, not sure if Wright was making fun of him or was just stupid.
“Which way are you headed?” Wright said. “I mean, when you do get things set right with the tires here. I’m going west so if you wanted company I—”
“You’re trying to bait me,” the guy said. “Look at me here. I’ve already had a heck of a day and you’re standing there busting my chops.”
Wright nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry. I was amused at your expense, but I sure wouldn’t like to be in your situation right now.”
Wright walked over, taking out his wallet.
“Which branch were you in?” he said.
“Branch?” They guy’s eyes flicked to the wallet and back to Wright’s eyes.
“Marine? Army?”
“Regular army.”
“Posted?”
“Afghanistan.”
“Nasty times over there, huh?” Wright took two fifties from his wallet and looked around the guy into the workshop office.
Behind a rough old desk covered in invoices and dockets and empty coffee cups sat a small balding man in his late fifties wearing dark blue overalls. An embroidered patch on his left breast read BRUCE.
“Pretty nasty,” the guy with no pants said.
Wright held out the hundred dollars. “That cover the deposit there, Bruce?” he said.
Bruce stood up and he was even shorter than he’d seemed while sitting down. He came around the desk and took the money. He slipped it into a pocket in the overalls.
“Four o’clock,” he said. “We’ll have you going again. Retreads and it’ll be four hundred all up.”
The guy with no pants just nodded. He handed over the keys and stepped back.
“Four hundred seems steep,” Wright said. “For retreads.”
“You and your buddy are of course welcome to take your business elsewhere.” The short balding guy actually smiled. He took a breath. “It’s actually a good deal. I’ve still got to make a living here and, well, your new friend doesn’t seem to be in a good situation.”
“So you take advantage.”
The guy smiled. “Met his kind before. He’d be the first to take advantage of me.”
Wright glanced at the guy with no pants. He’d moved back closer to the Jeep.
“Maybe you’re right,” Wright said. “And maybe not. Sometimes it’s hard to judge character from a moment like that.”
“Son,” the short balding guy said, “I’ve had a lifetime of judging character from moments like that. Never have I missed once.” He leaned in closer and half-whispered, “You be careful.”
Wright smiled. “Always.”
Chapter Four
A grumbling truck pulled off the road and across the gas station’s forecourt. Stopped at the diesel pump. The engine chugged and shut down.
“That was mighty kind of you,” the guy with no pants said to Wright. “I’ll repay you, of course.”
Wright shrugged. “Thank you for your service.”
The guy laughed. “Hardly. I went, I learned to shoot, I got stoned way too much and I didn’t see a day of combat. Spent my whole time on the artillery range and in the mess peeling potatoes.”
“Figures.”
“Joe Bridger,” the guy said.
“Scott Wright. Do you know your way around town?”
“What’s to know? Six stores, a diner, a gas station and a slaughterhouse on the edge of town.”
“Western Union?”
“I’ll go to the post office. Make a call, get the money in I have to report in to my employer anyhow.”
“Of course.”
“How can I get the money back to you?” Bridger said. His whole demeanor had changed. Far more friendly and open now. His body had relaxed.
“I was going to wander up the road,” Wright said. “See if I could find a place to sell me a winter coat. Figure that would be the same place you would visit to get some new pants. I could wait.”
“Yeah.” Bridger looked in the back of the Jeep. “She took all my stuff before she slashed the tires. I had a couple of changes in there anyway.”
“Must have been some break up,” Wright said.
“You could say.”
The short balding guy had slipped back into workshop office. Through the big workshop door, a car was up on a thick hydraulic jack and a young guy in overalls was shining a light into the underside.
“Guess we’re walking,” Wright said. “Guess it’s not far.”
“Two horse town,” Bridger said. “No cabs. No Uber.”
“I don’t mind walking.” Wright looked at Bridger’s bare feet. They were red around the sides and up the ankles. There were some cuts; blood on the right big toe. Interesting.
“Ah, don’t mind that,” Bridger said. “I grew up in the desert running around with bare feet.”
“Then let’s hit the road.”
Bridger laughed and shook his head and started walking.
They were near the edge of town, and the main road in had steady traffic. Most of it, likely, was simply heading on north, passing through.
Wright walked in silence with Bridger for a ways. Bridger set a brisk pace, as if eager to get this done. He winced a couple of times, lifting his bare feet.
“Where did you serve?” Bridger said
“Was cop. Just on the beat. Never in the service.”
“Uh-huh.”
Bridger eyed him. Suspicion there. Well, that wouldn’t be a surprise. Every moment Wright spent with the man suggested a whole world of things.
“What happened with the Jeep,” Wright said.
Bridger didn’t reply.
The sky was clear and blue. To the west the mountains rose, far off, but somewhat dominating the scene. A jagged line along the horizon. That was Montana for you. Plenty of plains, to the east, but boy those mountains. Filled with invigorating air and peaceful quiet.
Perhaps that’s what he should do, skip the intrigue with this guy and hitch a ride up there. Find some lodge to hole up in for a week or two or three. After loading lumber for a while, it would be good to take some time out.
“I had a job,” Bridger said then. “Not strictly legal. Cash job.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You going to run me in?”
“Been a long time since I was cop.” Wright smiled. This was getting a little more interesting. “Besides, way out of my jurisdiction.”
Bridger laughed. “I’ve tried to get legitimate jobs, believe me. No one wants me. No one wants a vet who’s not quite stable.”
“Walking around with no pants or shoes probably not helping with that one, huh?”
Another laugh. “I’m starting to like you, bub.”
“PTSD?” Wright said.
“I wish. That would make things a whole lot easier. I’d be eligible for disability. I’m just plain caught between two worlds. Employability and eligibility.”
Wright said nothing.
“So I take the work I can get,” Bridger said. “Look what it gets me.”
“The work you can get?”
“I have skills.”
“I’m sure of it.”
“I hit a guy once, though. At a real job I had. Wasn’t meant to be more than a tap, but he moved into it. Caught it bad. Landed bad. Got hospital time. That helped with me finding it hard to land jobs, you know.”
“I hear you.”
“That kind of thing follows you around.”
Wright didn’t say anything. The guy’s story was wandering. Inconsistent. Maybe the thing to do would be to just grab a good winter coat and head for the hills. He was good for money for a while. When it got too cold, he could light out south. Maybe land up in Arizona. Plenty of work around Phoenix.
At least for someone who was willing to just do the work and didn’t go around hitting someone.
It was easy to picture Bridger, taking offense at some casual comment from a colleague and letting loose with his fists. Hard to know if that was PTSD or just who the guy was.
They reached an intersection. Some clapboard and asbestos homes with ragged yards. Grassy verges and bare trees. Spruce or elm or something. A place right on the corner that was boarded up, a faded sign over the door advertising fresh flowers.
A couple of blocks on they came to a set of stores set back from the road. A town this small, it was lucky to have any stores at all.
A block behind the stores stood a cluster of tall, gray grain silos. The whir of machinery and vehicles came from the place.
There was a narrow parking precinct between the stores and the road. The sidewalk continued on, with a grass verge.
“Menswear,” Bridger said, pointing at the store fronts.
There was a row of cars parked facing into the stores, about every second spot occupied. Faded station wagons and little runabouts and a few pickups.
The store Bridger had indicated wasn’t just menswear. It was everything. Hardware, clothing, books, farm supplies, kitchenware. The lists on the signs out front went on. Seemed like everything that wasn’t a grocery item could be had, and for a discounted price at that. Over the door a big, faded sign read Harley’s Discount Hardware. No Wal-Mart in town to compete with.
Spotting a rippling American flag partway along the next block, Wright pointed. “Post office.”
“Looks like. Meet you back in the store in ten.”
“Ten minutes?” It seemed a remarkably short time to retrieve cash, even with Western Union.
“That’s all it’ll take.”
“You got someone at the other end sitting by the phone, huh?”
“Something like that. Maybe fifteen.”
“I’m in no particular hurry.” It didn’t matter about the money. That was always easy come, easy go. And it wasn’t as if Wright was without a backup. Plenty of cash was still coming into his account monthly.
But there was a principle. He’d helped a guy out and the guy wanted to repay him. It would be rude to refuse.
Bridger shook Wright’s hand. “Thank you. See you soon.”
Wright gave him a nod and headed toward the store. At the doorway, he looked after Bridger. The man was running now. Jacket flying up, boxer shorts flashing.
Wright sighed and headed into the store.
Chapter Five
The store was well-laid out and the shelves and racks were filled with clean and new items. Toaster ovens here with the blenders, new and used books there with the stationery and cleaning products. On the counter there was even a Wega coffee machine, with a handwritten price list for several different kinds. No mention of soy or almond. Much too far from a big city, really.
“Help you?” a young woman said from the counter. It was long block, with a glass top and front. The coffee machine was at one end and the register at the other.
There were a few other customers. An older couple examining the televisions, a guy in overalls looking at power tools.
“Just wanted to get a winter coat,” Wright said to the woman. “It’s getting cooler.”
“Yes it is.” She smiled. Maybe twenty or twenty three. Wearing a fur-lined hood and a black tee shirt. She had a phone in her hand and had been busy tapping and swiping at the display. Now she focused on Wright.
“Where would I find them?” he said.
“Third aisle,” she said. “What are you? Six five, six six?”
“Something like that.”
“We don’t have a Tall and Large section.”
“I’ll do fine.” He headed off where she’d indicated. It didn’t take him a moment to pick out a coat—a black, thick woolen thing, with a stiff collar and deep pockets. It came down to below his knees.
At the counter the woman charged him $79.99 plus tax. Wright gave her two of his fifties. He looked through the windows. No sign of Bridger. It hadn’t been more than ten minutes yet.
To the woman, Wright said, “I could use a coffee. Black.”
“I can do that,” she said. “$2.99.”
Wright handed her back some of his change.
“Take me a couple of minutes,” she said. “Grab a seat if you like.”
By the windows, tucked in near some aluminum ladders, there were two small tables with chairs. The folding kind, made from painted wood. They would look right at home on someone’s front veranda. There were even prices on them. Discounted.
Wright sat where he could see up along the road toward the Post Office. No sign of Bridger.
Well, there was no hurry. He stood and wandered to the book section. He found a paperback by Bradley Patterson. Something about the theft of a nuclear submarine. It would keep him occupied for a couple of hours at least. He paid at the counter and sat back at the table.
No sign of Bridger.
Well. No hurry.
Chapter Six
