An American Outlaw Read online

  John Stonehouse

  AN AMERICAN OUTLAW

  Copyright © by John Stonehouse 2013

  John Stonehouse has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission of the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Design by JT Lindroos

  Cover Photo by Paul Lowry

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thomas Stofer, for sticking with it to the end. Marion Donaldson, Sam Copeland, Jennifer McVeigh, Susannah Godman, Ian Drury and JT.

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  Anyone familiar with the geography and topography of west Texas will realize I have taken more than a few liberties; and while many of the places in the book do exist, they have been altered according to the demands of the story, and should, therefore, be regarded as entirely fictitious.

  For B & T

  mes plus belles étoiles

  CHAPTER 1

  Terlingua, TX.

  My name is Gilman James. I come from Lafayette, Louisiana. So much happened to me, I have to tell somebody, to get it all out of my system. Nothing seems real anymore.

  I know you don't know me. If you ever do hear about me, it probably means I'm dead.

  My family came from Missouri, originally, before Louisiana. You might've heard of my Great-Great-Grandaddy. His name was Jesse.

  It was like this.

  About ten o' clock one morning I'm walking onto this gas station forecourt, out of the hot sun, into the shade. They had a big red and white Coca-Cola machine right by the door—to make you buy one.

  Soon as I looked at it the lights went out on it. And it stopped buzzing.

  At the same time, this skinny old guy's walking out of the gas station store looking at three quarters in the open palm of his hand. He puts them in the Coca-Cola machine but it just spits them back out again.

  He stares at his money lying there; rejected. Then he sees it ain't even working.

  By this time I'm standing next to him, about to go on inside.

  He looked up at me, straight in the face.

  I nodded.

  He says, “God-dammit.”

  Whatever happened to Texas Friendly?

  I says, “How's it going?”

  “Don't put no money in there, Mister,” he said. Then he shouted out, “Lem. Say, Lem. Looks like we got another God-damn power-outage...”

  And that was the start of it. Right there.

  Terlingua. I never will forget the name.

  The far southwest of Texas. Ex-mining town. Silver. Minerals and shit. It had two motels, plus a combination gas station, store and diner—all rolled into one.

  I was only supposed to be there one night. I still think about that, sometimes.

  The old guy with the quarters turned around and went back inside the store.

  I followed. He never even held the door for me.

  Inside, there's this big guy working the counter.

  “I know,” he says, “we're all out. It just hit in here, too.”

  The old guy's shouting. “What the hell's the matter with these people, Lem? That's the third damn time this month.”

  “What are y'all going to do?” the guy says.

  I wanted breakfast. I was hungry; it was gone ten already.

  I says to the counter guy, “I get some breakfast? In the diner? Still an' all?”

  “You can go ahead and take whatever we cooked already.” He pointed to the hot-plates, over on the side. “But you heard what we's saying? We're powered out. Kitchen's closed.”

  The quarters guy says, “How long you figure we'll be out, Lem?”

  “Cain't say yet. I got to call it in. It'll be something, though.”

  Now the skinny old bastard starts hollerin’, “What in hell are they doing? I mean, God dammit, what's wrong with these people?”

  I went over to where the food was at; to get away from him pissing vinegar. I loaded up with sausage and eggs.

  The counter guy calls over; “I guess that coffee's still hot in there, too…”

  “Uh, got it,” I said, “thanks.” I felt like I could've worked that one out, though. I think he just did it so he could ignore that fuckin' little dillweed with the quarters. He was still going at it.

  Anyhow, least one of them was friendly. That is what Texas is supposed to mean.

  I took a sixteen-ounce cup of coffee and a Bavarian creme doughnut, along with the sausage and eggs. I sat by the window. Ate, while a guy rigged a diesel generator outside. There was black smoke pouring out of it. Noisy, too.

  The air in the diner was already getting hot—without A/C. Texas going to do that in July.

  It was so far south it was nearly Mexico. Maybe ten miles to the Rio Grande. Out the window, the terrain was familiar ground; straight-up desert—to an ex-Marine.

  I was going to just eat breakfast and get back on the road. I had to be some place. That afternoon I was robbing the bank. Up at Alpine.

  It wasn't just me; there were three of us. Me, Michael Tyler, Steven Childress.

  We all split up when we crossed the state line from Louisiana into east Texas. We was all driving trucks, I guess we looked about like anybody else around there. I had my old Ford F150. Candy-apple red. Beat up, covered in dirt.

  We did all the scouting, all the reconn, two weeks back. I always liked reconn. It's never a waste of time. We picked a bunch of places we could stay, once we all split up. I got Terlingua—the southern watch. It had everything you'd need.

  I'd never robbed a bank before. I'd seen some action—the Marine Corps; in Iraq. But the truth is, I had a bad feeling about that bank. Maybe I never inherited the family genes. The stealin' ones, that is. When it comes to tearin' shit up—I got the blood on that. Jesse was a hell of a fighter in the war against the North. The Civil War.

  I ate breakfast. And thought about the town of Alpine where the bank was at. Eighty miles north, up the road.

  Two days back, I'd committed my first crime—my home town, Lafayette. We pulled a warehouse heist, at the airport. Burnt our bridges with the regular world.

  The door of the diner opened. A hard-looking Mexican woman walks in. Stone-wash jeans. Red high-heel shoes. She had a scowl on her face like a two-year-old.

  “Hey,” she says, “how come I can't pump no gas out there?”

  “Ma'am, they's a power outage. Half the county's out. Cain't pump no gas till they fix it.”

  I bit so hard into my doughnut the Bavarian creme burst out all over my pants.

  The Mexican woman looks around with her mouth wide open. She looks out the window by me. “How 'bout that generator you runnin' back there?”

  “That thing's running these here 'frigerators, Ma'am, that's all. Cain't pump no gas on it.”

  I just sat looking at the two of them.

  The Mexican woman's shaking her head. “Damn. How long you figure we're going to be out?”

  “I called the power company—just got off of the phone to 'em. They saying five, maybe six hours.”

  Now I was staring.

  She said, “They gotta be kidding, right?”

  “No, Ma'am. First they got to find the break. Cain't fix it till they find it. Could take longer, at that.”

  “I just drove twenty miles to get here.” She starts in sucking on her cheeks. “What am I supposed to do, turn around and go home? I got to call before it's even worth I come out here?”

  “Y'all don't be counting on that, Ma'am. Oftentimes, they's a power outage, they got to shut the phone line down also. Something 'bout the sub-station cain't work right. Or the exchange. Something...”

  She stomped back out to the black Dodge Ram on the forecourt. I just sat staring out the window at the pumps.

  I needed gas. Sweat started running down my back. I needed gas. Period.

  The night before, driving in, the truck got to running low—but there was nowhere to stop on the road. Nothing but desert and empty highway. I figured it wouldn't matter—knowing Terlingua had a gas station, knowing it from the scout. But the time I rolled in, damn if it weren't shut already. Closed up for the night.

  Alpine was eighty miles north. No way I'd make it that far.

  It was already eleven o' clock. If the power stayed out as long as they said, I wasn't going to make it. Jesus.

  I went to pay for breakfast.

  The guy makes my change. I says, “There some place else I can get gas around here? I guess I need to get back on the road a ways.”

  He thought about it. “Nearest place'd be Presidio. Out on one-seventy. El camino rio.”

  “Is it far?”

  He shrugged. “Fifty something.”

  “Fifty?”

  “That's all there is.”

  I took my change.

  “It ain't nothing but a ranch road,” the guy says. “Rock hounds like it, I guess.”

  I left the diner. Walked back to the motel I spent the night before—The Old Mission Motel.

  Red dirt was blowing across the road. Down there it's more like sand than dirt. I tried to remember what they call it. I'm always thinking shit like that. My Company Commander used to look at me sideways, sometimes. Said I got an inquiring
mind. Guess I do wish my education wouldn't have got so screwed. Maybe things could've been different.

  I still had the motel room, paid 'em two nights so I could use it the rest of the day.

  I didn't know whether to call Michael, or Steven. We was all split up around the town of Alpine to cut the odds of being seen. Like spokes on a wheel, Steven said. I thought it was more like points on a compass. It was, really.

  I had the southern watch—Michael was east in Fort Stockton—Steven up in Pecos, the northern point.

  I didn't want to make any call. Not till I could think of a solution. We were supposed to meet up at three, at Alpine. If the power stayed out I'd never make it. With no gas. But would it stay out. And how about the phones?

  I had a cell in my bag. No good. Too far out in the desert. No signal.

  I found Presidio, where the other gas station was at, on my Department of Transportation map. Forget it. I'd have to hitch a ride. Both ways. Somebody would remember. A guy hitching a ride a hundred miles for gas? It would've been like a story round there.

  I folded the map. Put it away in my bag. I put it on top of my M9 Beretta, to hide it.

  It was hot in the motel room. Coming on midday. They had a pool out front—you could see the gas station from there. I had some old cargo shorts in my bag. I put them on and went outside.

  Not many people came by that gas station in Terlingua. From the pool, I kept checking the big Exxon sign, to see if the lights flashed on up inside it. But nothing happened.

  It was quiet. A dog-still afternoon. Hot like a furnace. A dry wind swayed the top of a green ocotillo by the chain fence. Red sand was blowing in the pool. People don't go that far south in summer. That was part of why Michael and me chose it. The only people passing through were rock hounds hunting cinnabar, and migrant workers headed back to Mexico. Seeds drifting on the wind.

  And me. Waiting on robbing that bank.

  Alpine was up in the Highlands. They got Highlands in Texas, I never knew before I went there on scout.

  It was a College town; people came there from all over, from overseas—wherever. They had a bunch of money coming in 'cause of all the students, Steven said. Steven was the third man in our team of three. Little brother of Nate—about the best friend I ever had.

  But Nate was dead.

  Steven went to college in Alpine. He met a girl there; stuck around after. It all went south with the girl, but by then he'd got himself a job—at the bank; the Farmer's Bank—around the same time Nate and me and Michael deployed third tour USMC. To Iraq.

  A lot happened since then.

  I stuck my head under the water, dived to the bottom of the pool. Felt the cold pressure, emptying my mind.

  I came back up, lay floating, watching yellow blades against the turquoise liner.

  A black outline of a man appears. The edge of the pool. Big guy, Comanche. He drops in the water, fully clothed, just to cool down.

  Don't know where he came from. He never said two words. He folds his arms across his chest, standing in his boots, the water up to his neck. Like some red skinned cross between a wolf and a shark.

  I stared at the sky overhead. Flat, hard. Radiating heat. When I looked back a minute later, the man was gone.

  I still didn't try to call Michael, nor Steven. Not yet. There'd be time. If I didn't show, they'd wait; bail. That was the deal—we all agreed.

  But they'd fix the power.

  I thought of back home, Lafayette, the night we first talked—saying out loud about taking; stealin', robbing a warehouse. A bank. Everything else. Nate was newly dead then. The three of us raw—Steven and Michael and me. We were drinking beer, out on the porch at Michael's place, out by the freeway. All the time we was talking, I could hear traffic in the background. Cars and trucks, running down Evangeline. The world heedless, turning on.

  I pulled myself out of the pool. Sat at the water's edge. Thought again of the other gas station; Presidio.

  Maybe the truck could make it? On the map, the road out had seemed short enough. Even as I thought of it, something else hit me—a feeling something wasn't right. The gun in my bag—in the motel room. When I'd put the map away, on top of it, something'd caught my eye.

  I sat a second more. Then jumped to my feet, ran back in the motel room and locked the door.

  I ripped open the bag. Pulled the gun out from under the map. Stared at it.

  The last number machine-stamped in the frame was a seven. A seven, not a one. Wrong serial number. I had Nate's gun.

  Christ. Steven must have mine.

  I picked up the phone to call Steven. The line was dead. Yeah. It fucking had to be. I sat on the bed, thinking.

  I checked my watch. Almost one. I felt my heart rate quicken, ran a hand through my wet hair.

  They wouldn't go, they'd pull it. Like we said. Anybody didn't show, we'd scratch. Re-arrange the hit the next day.

  I dressed quick, grabbed my keys, ran out, ran to the truck. I climbed in, drove around back of the motel—away from the road, where no one would see.

  It was too late, no way I'd make it. If we were bugging out, less anybody saw of me, the fewer eyes the better—like I learned in the Corps

  I'd stay out of sight. Wait on the power. Blow as soon as it hooked back up.

  I locked the truck. Left it well out of sight behind a couple of rusted dumpsters.

  From the scout, I knew there was a clap-board store a mile up the hill. I could walk up, buy something to eat, something to drink, stay away from the diner.

  I set out to walk up the highway keeping back from the road, among the scrub and rock. At the top of the long hill I tried the cell again, holding it in the palm of my hand; willing it to work.

  Nothing. Miles it'd been, a whole day before, since I last had any signal.

  But they'd wait.

  Inside the store, it was dark, deserted, no power, no working lights. The sound of some guy in back running around yelling, all his stock starting to melt.

  I picked out what I needed. Left money by the counter.

  I headed on back down the hill. Thinking on Steven, and my gun.

  An M9 Beretta—service-issue. My gun. Nobody ever had it, except for me.

  At The Old Mission, everything was deserted. One room only rented—my room. A clerk showed up in the morning at check-out time, then again in the evening, for any new arrivals. The place was empty, Terlingua an outpost. No-one came there. That was the reason we chose it.

  I waited on the pumps. On that Exxon sign to light up. No way of moving. Nobody I could call.

  A feeling started to grip my stomach.

  In back of the diner the generator ran on, kicking black smoke—to vanish in the hot wind. Every once in a while, a car pulled in off the highway, into the gas station. And pulled back out a minute later, seeing it closed.

  If there was anybody living within twenty miles, they must've known the place was shut down. Nobody came.

  I thought of Michael and Steven.

  If they'd pulled it, if they'd bailed—how come nobody came to look for me?

  Maybe not Steven. But Michael would.

  By late afternoon, I watched the big guy from the diner start to close it up. Him and some short-order cook. The big guy, Lem, tanked the generator from a ten gallon can and climbed into a Bronco.

  The cook got into a panel van.

  The pair of 'em hit the highway. I watched them both disappear.

  I went around back of The Old Mission to sit in my truck. Watching the light start to change. To fade, into evening.

  I pulled the gun from my bag, the gun that Steven had been carrying—Nate had owned it, in the service. It was exactly alike with mine. Marine-issue M9, semi-auto. Identical, but for the numbers stamped along the frame.

  Two pistols that'd kept me and him alive.

  I climbed down from the cab. Stood watching the empty highway.

  Dusk was closing in all around now. I went around back of my truck, climbed over the side and lay in the truck bed, against the hard metal. Sweat running in my hair.

  I tried not to think. Of Nate. I tried not to think of a desert, thousands of miles from there. Of the flashes in my head, if I closed my eyes.

  All I could do was wait.