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  I heard his baritone voice again. “Aren’t you the clever one?” he yelled. “Found a hole to crawl into. Good thing I’ve got your shovel to dig you out.”

  He stepped to the edge of the hole with his chrome revolver holstered. He held my shovel over his head by the shaft, as if it were an axe. I guess he’d planned to beat me to death with it.

  His eyes went wide when he saw the .45, and he dropped the shovel. The movement of his hand towards his holster was a blur. I’d seen him move that fast in my driveway, though, and I already had my finger on the trigger. My cannon went off with a force that nearly ripped it from my hands. Then everything was very still. My ears rang like the inside of bell, and my face was peppered with burnt gunpowder from the discharge of the big .45.

  I stayed in the hole for a while, waiting to see if he’d come back. Time stood still. Eventually I sat up and looked to see where my hunter had gone.

  He was seated in the dirt about ten yards away, his legs fully extended. Facing me straight-on, he looked like a discarded rag doll. His left hand was pressed tight against his abdomen; his right hand still clutched the revolver. His tee shirt was oily with blood that leaked through the fingers of his left hand. When we made eye contact he opened his mouth to talk. He shifted his weight slightly, and then he spoke to me in that baritone voice again.

  “Your mom and dad begged us not to hurt you,” he said. His head drooped as if he were going to sleep. Then he pulled his head up again and tried to sit upright. The cephalic veins on the outside of his cantaloupe-sized biceps were as thick as pencils, his forearms bigger than the calves on my legs. “I guess that ship has sailed,” he said. He smiled like he’d just told a dirty joke, and I saw the barrel of his pistol rising fast.

  I don’t remember pulling the trigger. What I do remember is the thunderous, heart-stopping sound of the cannon going off repeatedly as he tumbled backwards, the metal in my hands seeming to come alive on its own, the gun jerking with ferocious power with each report, his body spinning and thrashing on that rust-colored dirt as if connected to cables like a marionette.

  I remember crying until I couldn’t cry any more.

  I began to feel an odd sort of clarity. I knew that killers went to jail, and I felt haunted by what my brother had said about me being committed to an asylum. Above all else I didn’t want to be locked up in a padded cell. People never come out of places like that. Taking care to avoid the blood on his clothing, I grabbed hold of the man’s boots and pulled and dragged him into the hole. He was bigger than I was, but it wasn’t hard sliding him across the loose, sandy dirt. He landed in the pit atop the backpack I’d left in the hole. I tossed in my gun and his chrome revolver, and after staring at his broken shape in the bottom of the pit, I’d used the shovel to fill in the hole with the mound of dirt I’d extracted earlier when I’d tried to make the solar still.

  I don’t recall walking home, but I remember that the car that had been in the driveway was gone when I got there, and that the garage door was still open. I did what I always did when I came home dirty after spending a day in the forest: I cleaned up on the back porch with the water hose and bar soap, and then put on a clean pair of shoes and jeans from the stack my mom left outside for me. I tossed my dirty clothes in the hamper where I always left them. Even in my dazed state I kept to my routine.

  I couldn’t find my parents downstairs, and I wondered if they’d gone for a walk. As I made my way upstairs I began to smell the powerful odor of gunpowder. I walked down the hall to my parents’ bedroom and found both of my parents sprawled on the floor by my dad’s side of the bed. My father had pulled the nightstand drawer open, as if he’d been looking for his pistol. It would have been there if I hadn’t taken it that day.

  Chapter 1

  I was in the Meztec Bar in El Paso talking to Eric Fullmeyer, my contact with the witness protection program. The low-hanging December sun shone brightly through the front windows, making the liquor bottles behind the big oak bar glow like giant Christmas tree lights. It was too early for dinner and the lunch crowd had already left, so there wasn't anyone sitting close enough to overhear our conversation. That was good, since we were talking about me being dead. Wouldn't want to upset anyone's digestion.

  "Did you realize you were followed here?" Fullmeyer asked me.

  "I thought I might have been," I said. "Big copper-colored sedan with a white vinyl roof? Texas plates?"

  "That's the one."

  I nodded. "I saw them a few times in traffic on the way over here. Weird color for a car."

  "The driver took a hard look at you when you came in and then parked where he could keep an eye on the front door."

  "Sounds ominous," I said.

  It was warm in the restaurant, and Fullmeyer unzipped his leather coat, revealing part of an automatic pistol in a black shoulder holster. He looked past me out the big plate glass window that faced onto the street and cocked his head slightly to one side like he was trying to hear a distant sound.

  "We're getting signals that the cartel Bullard worked for has decided to make an example of you," Fullmeyer said. "That could be one of their cars."

  Fullmeyer was tall, with wide shoulders and very short black hair. His beard, black turning to grey, was perfectly trimmed. He wore a brown leather coat over a pressed white shirt and bleached blue jeans. He had sad eyes that made me feel a bit like a student who had disappointed his teacher.

  “Maybe so,” I said. The strap for the sling I wore on my left arm dug into my shoulder, so I thumbed the strap onto a part of my shoulder that wasn't already raw and rested the sling in my lap.

  Fullmeyer sighed. "You don't seem worried."

  "I'm not, Eric. The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose."

  "Did you hear that in a Kung Fu movie? Bullard's business partners take people off the street and use blow torches on them. Do you like having all your fingers and toes?"

  "James Baldwin said it. He was beaten by cops in Harlem when he was 10 years old."

  "So you're becoming a philosopher? When did this happen?"

  "The library at the hospital is pretty limited, but all the time I spent there did give me time to think."

  Fullmeyer sighed. "About what?" He had very small scars around the base of his nose that made it look like his nose had been surgically re-attached.

  "Camille Paglia said that the real world isn't an extension of our desires for things to be fair and comfortable. It's a wilderness, and predators like Bullard and his crew are picking people off like wolves taking sheep who've wandered away from the fold. The price of personal freedom is vigilance and self-defense. Someone needs to start hunting the wolves, instead of ignoring them until all the sheep have been slaughtered. Or blow torched, in this case."

  "Who the hell is Camille Paglia?"

  "One of the nurses in the hospital studied Paglia in a Women's Studies class. She read that quote to me when I still had cotton pads taped over my eyelids."

  "I'm not unsympathetic to your point of view, Delorean, but the reality is that we can't pull people off the street until we catch them doing something. This isn't Russia. We can't make people disappear just because we think they're a threat."

  "Clearly. And yet Bullard's crew arranged to have him killed in a courtroom, in spectacular fashion. That seems like something you should be able to prosecute someone for. Have you arrested anyone for that yet? Bet you know who did it, though," I said.

  "We could go back and forth on this all day. We can't call in an airstrike on every person who's ever been connected with the M.T. cartel. We know they poisoned Bullard, but they also killed the inmate in the kitchen who did the handiwork. There isn’t much of a trail."

  "Maybe if you started small you could work your way up to actually doing something about these guys. You could write a parking ticket for the cartel dudes sitting across the street waiting for you to leave. Could be they forgot to feed the parking meter. I could go check, if you want." br />
  "You're really starting to piss me off,” Eric said. “Is this your head injury talking, or are you on painkillers?"

  "Just calling it like I see it, Eric.”

  Fullmeyer pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers and let out a long sigh.

  "Let's get down to business, okay? The answer came down from WITSEC authority. You have two strikes against joining the witness protection program." He held up one finger. "Your psychiatric evaluation said that you're unstable." He held up a second finger. "And you have vigilante tendencies. Obviously. Either of those would be enough for WITSEC to opt out on relocating you. They're just not comfortable with that level of risk. They're concerned that you'll get yourself killed doing something stupid and make the whole program look bad."

  I shook my head. "Then why are you here? You could have just called and told me that WITSEC was taking a pass on helping me."

  "It would also be embarrassing if you got put through a wood chipper in a public place, or whatever the M.T. cartel is doing to people this week."

  "I hope they put me through head first, Eric. I have sensitive feet."

  Fullmeyer cleared his throat and leaned slightly forward in the booth. "Your story’s been all over the news for months. Bullard's murder made even more of a circus out of it. There's a lot of downside exposure there."

  I laughed. "Okay. When you balance the downside exposure against the discomfort that WITSEC feels about babysitting an unstable vigilante like me, where does that leave us?" I crooked a finger at the waitress standing over at the bar.

  Fullmeyer looked at me with a flat expression. "I can help you disappear. Unofficially. I can help you stay off the cartel's radar. Unofficially."

  The waitress came over. She wore a black cowboy hat tipped back on her head, a red long-sleeved western shirt with pearl buttons, a short denim skirt, and shiny black cowboy boots. She had trim, muscular legs, glossy black shoulder length hair, and a pretty face with a slash of red lipstick. The name tag on her shirt said "Bonnie."

  "Are you married?" I asked her.

  Fullmeyer put his face in his hands.

  Bonnie looked shocked for a second and then laughed. She put her hand on one hip and pretended to be outraged. "I have a fiancé, I'll have you know," she said. Then she smiled a big smile that melted me.

  "If you're not married yet, I still have a chance. Does he have a sunny disposition and a pure heart like I do?"

  "I wouldn’t say his heart is pure, but he's a pretty happy guy."

  "I don't doubt it. You have a beautiful smile."

  She beamed. "Thank you, kind sir."

  "Although I am overwhelmed with sorrow that you're already spoken for, I still have to get on with my life. Would you please bring me a shot of the best scotch you have?"

  She gave me the big smile again. "Certainly." She looked at Fullmeyer. "Anything for you?"

  Fullmeyer groaned into his hands. "Do you have anything for a splitting headache?"

  "I'll bring you a double," she said. She turned on her heel and strode away purposefully.

  Fullmeyer looked up from his hands, his expression changing from annoyed to all-business.

  "It's like this, Delorean. There's a silver Camry in the parking lot out the back door. The keys are under the floor mat on the driver's side. I've got instructions for where to go in the glovebox. New identity. A sizable chunk of the cash you took from Bullard's house is under the spare. All you have to do is go. Just leave."

  The red Ford XL that I'd restored with my brother Bricklin was parked at the curb in front of the bar. The car was the only thing I had left of him. The cartel took the rest.

  "I'll take the cash and identity, but I’m not leaving the car behind."

  "That car gets too much attention, Delorean. It needs to go. What are there, like ten of those things left on the road? How do you think the posse found you here so fast? We told you to get here and keep a low profile, not take that thing to swap meets."

  I didn't say anything.

  "You wanted them to find you. That's why you're still driving the car. Is that it? You have a death wish?"

  I didn't say anything.

  Fullmeyer inhaled a deep breath and let it out slow, like he was trying to control himself. Although I barely knew him, I had the feeling that he would be difficult to beat in a fight. The knuckles on his oversized hands were huge, and his ears had the cauliflower shape that you see in wrestlers who've spent years in competition.

  "Okay," Fullmeyer said. "If they don't take you off here in El Paso, they'll find you and your hot rod again somewhere else, and they'll put a stick of dynamite under the exhaust manifold with a blasting cap or two to get the party started. Then when you go out to the car to make a run to the grocery store, you'll turn the ignition key and get blown into pieces so small that someone will have to find a fingertip to prove you were even inside when the car went up. Is that car so important you're willing to get killed over it?"

  "Okay," I said. "Fine. You win."

  Fullmeyer glared at me.

  Bonnie returned with the drinks and put them on cocktail napkins. "Enjoy your drinks, gentlemen," she said.

  I said "Thanks" without making eye contact with her. She searched our faces for a moment, then went back over to the bar and started talking to the bartender. At that point, the only people left in the place were me, Fullmeyer, Bonnie the waitress, and the bartender.

  Fullmeyer did a double-take look out the front window. "You should go out the back door," he said. "One of the idiots just got out of his car and is headed this way. I can buy you some time. Move it." He pulled a gold badge on a long chain out of his coat pocket and hung it around his neck. He stood up and started for the front doors of the bar. Then he stopped and turned. He pointed at me and said "You! Out the back door! Silver Camry with Oregon plates!"

  I didn't move.

  "Get gone. NOW!"

  I ignored Fullmeyer and drained my glass in one long swallow, feeling the burn as the scotch settled in my stomach.

  Fullmeyer went out through the front door and stood on the sidewalk by my car. Then he took a last look back at me through the big picture window before shaking his head and walking across the street.

  I went over to the bar, where Bonnie was talking to the bartender about ordering more cocktail napkins. I had to work one-handed because my left arm was in a sling, but I managed to get my money clip out of my painter pants, put it on the countertop, and thumb two twenties from the roll. I slid the bills across the bar towards Bonnie.

  "I wanted to pay for our drinks," I said. "I gotta go." I picked up the money clip.

  She looked at the cash. "Oh. Okay,” she said. “I'll get change for you."

  "Keep it," I said.

  She'd seen Fullmeyer put on his badge and heard him tell me to leave. She looked at me with a troubled expression and then swallowed.

  "Is everything okay?" she asked.

  "Not really."

  "I'm sorry," she said. She seemed like she really meant it. "Well, come back some time."

  "I'll do that," I said. Then I went out through the back door of the bar into the dusty El Paso afternoon.

  The sky had a lemony glow as I walked across the gravel towards the Toyota Camry that Fullmeyer had left me. It was an older model with no hubcaps and a dent in the left rear fender. I climbed in, smelled the musty smell that old cars have, and I lifted the floor mat. While I was bent over, I heard the crunching sound of footsteps on gravel. I sat back up, keys in hand, and watched two men walk to the back door of the bar I'd just left. One of them was dressed in rust-colored jeans, black canvas tennis shoes, and a long sleeved yellow shirt with a shape on the back like a seagull. He manhandled a pair of welder's tanks on a two-wheeled cart up over the small step that led to the back door. His partner wore coveralls with no shirt underneath, a pair of suede work boots, and a crinkled straw cowboy hat. He had a tribal tattoo running down his right arm from his shoulder to his wrist, and he carried a gray
machine gun on a tan canvas sling hanging loosely at the small of his back. The one with the tattoo held the door open for the one with the welding tanks, and he made an exaggerated gesture with his cowboy hat to indicate that his partner should go first. When his partner rolled the welder's tanks through the opened back door, the one with the cowboy hat slapped him on the butt with the hat and then laughed.

  I watched the door close behind them. A coppery taste filled my mouth, and my body suddenly felt like it was being pressed into the seat by a huge weight. The wolf pack had come to take me down inside the bar. Because I'd escaped, the pack would take whatever it could find. Fullmeyer. Bonnie. Because I'd left. Because I was still sitting here letting it happen.

  Fuck it.