"The Stake" - читать интересную книгу автора (Laymon Richard)

Explorers

One

“How about a little detour on the way home?” Pete asked. He started his van moving. Its tires crunched over the gravel of the parking lot.

A detour. Sounded good to Larry. But he said nothing. He knew that Pete’s suggestion had been directed to those in the seats behind them. If the wives didn’t go for it, the matter was closed.

“You aren’t gonna get us lost again, are you?” Barbara asked.

“Who, me?”

“He gets us on those back roads, no telling where we’ll end up.”

“I always get us home, don’t I?”

“Eventually.”

Pete glanced at Larry. A corner of his mouth turned up, lifting that side of his mustache. “Why do I put up with this, I ask you?”

Before Larry could come up with an answer, Barbara leaned forward and hooked a tawny forearm across her husband’s throat. “Because you love me, right?” she asked. She nipped the ridge of his ear.

“Hey, hey, calm down. You want to run me off the road?”

She wore a sleeveless blouse. A sprinkling of freckles showed on her deeply tanned shoulder. Though the air conditioner was blowing cool air into the van, the skin above her lip gleamed with moisture under a fine, curly down. Larry didn’t want to be caught staring, so he looked away. Just ahead, an old-timer dressed like a prospector was leading a burro along the road’s dusty shoulder.

Larry wondered if the guy was for real. Silver Junction, the town they were leaving behind, was full of characters in old west getups. Some seemed like the real article, but he had no doubt that most were simply playing the role for the benefit of the tourists.

“So how about it?” Pete asked as Barbara released him. “Want to do some exploring?”

“I think it’d be fun,” Jean said. “You in a hurry to get home, Larry?”

“Me? No.”

“He always hates to lose a day,” she explained. “I have an awful time trying to drag him out of the house.”

“The day’s already shot,” he said.

“Same to you, fella,” Barbara said.

“Whoops. Didn’t mean it that way. It’s been great.” It hadbeen a nice change from his usual seven-day work schedule. Fun being out with Pete and Barbara, wandering the old town, watching the gunfight on Main Street, having a burger and a couple of beers in the picturesque saloon. “I need to get out more, anyway, or I’d run dry.”

“Everything we do ends up in his books,” Jean explained, “but he still hates to be dragged away from his almighty word processor.”

“That’s what keeps a roof over our heads.”

Pete tipped his head back as if to carom his voice off the top of the windshield, the better for Barbara to hear. “Let’s take him to that ghost town.”

A ghost town.

A warm, pleasant tightness came to Larry’s chest and throat.

“You think you can find it?” Barbara asked.

“No sweat.” He turned to Larry, grinning. “You’ll love it. Just your kind of place.”

“It’s pretty spooky, all right,” Barbara said.

“He’ll be in hog heaven.”

“I bet you get a book out of it,” Pete told him. “Call it ‘The Horror of Sagebrush Flat.’ Maybe have some weirdos lurking around, chopping up everyone.”

Larry could feel himself blushing a little with the stir of pride that came whenever people started referring to his grisly novels. “If I did,” he said, “you wouldn’t read it.”

“Iwill,” Barbara assured him.

“I know you will. You’re my best fan.”

“I’ll wait for the movie,” Pete announced.

“You’ll have a long wait.”

“You’re gonna make it,” he said, nodding at Larry and narrowing one eye.

Barbara gave the back of his head a gentle whack. “He’s alreadymade it, dickhead.”

“Hey, hey, watch it with the hands.” He smoothed his mussed hair. The thick black hair was threaded with strands of gray. His mustache, with a lot more gray in it, looked as if it belonged on an older face.

“You’ll be a wizened, silver-haired old coot,” Larry said, “before they ever make a movie of one of my books.”

“Ah, bull. You’ll make it, mark my words.” He tilted his head. “ ‘The Beast of Sagebrush Flat.’ I can see it now. I’ve gotta be one of the characters, right?”

“Of course. You’re the guy driving.”

“Who’s gonna play me? Has to be someone suitably handsome and dashing.”

“Pee-wee Herman,” Barbara suggested.

“You about ready to die, honey?”

“De Niro,” Larry said. “He’d be perfect.”

Pete raised an eyebrow and stroked his mustache. “Think so? He’s kind of old.”

“You’re no spring chicken,” Barbara said.

“Hey. Thirty-nine. Hardly counts as one foot in the grave.”

“Before you start losing your eyesight, you’d better watch for the turnoff.”

“I know just where it is. Never fear. I’ve got a natural instinct for these things. De Niro, huh? Yeah, I like that.”

“You’d better slow down,” Barbara told him.

“Don’t get your shorts in a knot, huh? I know exactly where we’re going.”

The van swept around a curve of the two-lane blacktop and shot past a road that led off to the left.

“That was it, smart guy.”

He leaned against his door and watched the road recede in the side mirror. “Naw.”

“Oh yes it was.”

“They never listen to us,” Jean said.

“That wasn’t it,” Pete muttered, stepping on the brake. The van slowed. He pulled onto the gravel shoulder, stopped, cranked his window down and stared back. “You really think that’s it, honey?”

“If you don’t believe me, keeping going.”

“Shit.”

“Maybe we won’tbe visiting a ghost town today,” Jean said, sounding amused.

Larry turned in his seat and looked at her. Smiling, she rolled her eyes upward. That expression was as good as words. What’ve we gotten ourselves into? Like Larry, she always got a kick out of the good-natured bickering that went on between Pete and Barbara. But they’d seen the arguments turn nasty, and had occasionally overheard quarrels that sounded truly vicious coming from the couple’s next-door house.

“Why don’t we give that road a try?” Larry suggested.

“It’s not the one.”

“Prince Henry the Navigator,” Barbara muttered.

“Maybe we should flip a coin,” Jean said.

“Do you have a map?” Larry asked.

“Pete doesn’t believe in them,” Barbara told him, her voice pleasant. Amazing how she reserved the sarcasm for her husband. “It’s up to you, Peter. I’ve offered my opinion. Feel free to ignore it.”

“Oh, hell,” he muttered. He started to turn the van around, and Larry saw the look of relief on Jean’s face.

“If it’s the wrong road,” Larry told Barbara, “we hold you personally responsible.”

She bared her teeth at him, then laughed softly.

“That’s tellin‘ her, pal.” Pete turned the van onto the side road and stepped on the gas. He drove up the middle, ignoring the faded white line. There wasn’t enough left of the speed limit sign to read its numbers. The metal had been riddled with bullets. Some of the holes looked fresh, but many were fringed with rust. Pete pointed at the sign. “There’s some local color for you. Ol’ Barb’s reallygonna be in trouble if we not only take the wrong road, but get shot in the bargain.”

“We’ll duck if we see any bargain hunters,” Larry said.

“Ha! Good one! I hate to tell you, they’re in the backseat.”

“Can’t miss at this range,” Jean said.

“We’re dead meat.”

“You’ve got nothing to worry about, Petey. You’re no bargain.”

“I know. I’m priceless. I’m also smart enough to know this isn’t the road to Sagebrush Flat. But here we are anyway.”

“It was a good decision,” Larry assured him. “In my vast experience, I’ve found it always wiser to go along with female advice.”

“That’s because it’s usually right,” Jean said.

“Either way,” he told Pete, “you can’t lose. First, you make them happy by doing what they tell you. That’s the main thing. Let them think they’re in control. They love it. Then, if it turns out they were right, everything’s cool. If it turns out they were wrong...”

“Which is usually the case,” Pete added.

“Do they know what thin ice they’re on?” Jean asked.

“If they’re wrong,” Larry went on, “then you have the pleasure of basking in the glow of superiority.”

Pete grinned and nodded. “Hey, you oughta put that in one of your books.”

“It wasin one of his books,” Barbara said. “If I’m not mistaken, a redneck cop spoke pretty much those very words in Dead of Night.”

“Yeah?”

“No kidding?” Larry asked, amazed that she had remembered such a thing.

“Don’t you remember?”

He’d quoted one of his own characters without even realizing it? Odd, he thought. And a little disturbing. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “If you say so, I guess it’s there.”

“The philosophy at work,” Pete said.

“No, I mean it. I write so much... That book was a long time ago.”

“I have the advantage,” Barbara said. “I just read it last month.”

“Hey, maybe you’re becoming that guy. Turning into your redneck cop. There’s an idea for a story, huh? A writer starts turning into this character he made up.”

“Has possibilities.”

“Well, if you use it, remember where you got the idea.”

“Ah-ha!” Barbara said. “Over on the left.”

Looking across the road, Larry saw the ruins of an old structure. It no longer had a roof. The door and window-panes, if it ever had them, were gone. The upper portions of the walls had crumbled away, and some of the rocks that might once have formed the square enclosure now lay in rubble around it — returning to the desert from which they’d been taken.

“Well,” Pete said, “I guess this isthe right road.”

“Prince Henry.”

“Doesn’t look like much of a ghost town,” Jean remarked.

“That isn’t it,” Barbara told her. “But we stopped and had a look around before we got to Sagebrush Flat.”

“Nothing much there,” Pete said. “Wanta take a quick look?”

“I’d rather get on to the main attraction.”

In spite of Jean’s earlier comments about her difficulties in getting him out of the house, they’d taken several day trips during the past year to explore the region. Sometimes with Pete and Barbara, a few times by themselves or with Lane — when they could drag their seventeen-year-old daughter away from home. On those outings, Larry had seen plenty of ruins similar to the one they were leaving behind. But not a real ghost town.

“Don’t you always wonder who lived in places like that?” Jean asked.

“Prospectors, I should think,” Pete said.

“ ‘Dead guys,’ ” Larry quoted.

“Leave it to you. The morbid touch.”

“Actually, that was Lane’s comment. ‘Dead guys.’ Remember, hon?”

“She went back to the car and waited for us that time. She wanted nothing to do with it.”

“I know the feeling,” Barbara said. “I think this stuff’s interesting, but you gotta know that whoever lived there’s been pushing up daisies for a while.”

“Cactus,” Pete said.

“Whatever. Anyway, dead. Makes it kind of spooky.”

“All the better for Larry here.”

“Doesn’t bother me,” Jean said. “I just think it’s neat to see where they used to live, and, you know, imagine what it must’ve been like. It’s history.”

“Speaking of history,” Larry said, “what do you know about this ghost town of yours?”

“Not much,” Pete told him.

“Hedoesn’t even know where it is.”

“It must be in some of those guidebooks,” Jean said.

“Nope. We checked.”

“I guess it’s nothing all that special,” Pete said. “Maybe it’s not an official ghost town, or whatever it takes to get noticed — just a wide spot in the road that got deserted.” He suddenly grinned at Larry. “Hey, suppose it’s just there for us? You know? Like a figment of our imaginations.”

“A ghostghost town.”

“Yeah! How about that? Another idea for you. You’re gonna have to start paying me a consultant’s fee.”

“You’d do better if you wrote the books yourself.”

“Hey, maybe I oughta give it a try. How long does it take you to knock out one of those things?”

“Six months, maybe, to write one. About twenty-five years to learn how.”

“You’d better just stick to repairing televisions,” Barbara said.

“We coming up on the turnoff?” he asked.

“I’ll let you know.”

“We didn’t get any chance to explore the place last time,” Pete said. “Spent too much time screwing around back at that pile of rocks.”

“Watch it, buster.”

“Anyway, we had to get home for some party you were having, so we just drove right on through Sagebrush.”

God, Larry thought, he’d meant it literally. Otherwise Barbara wouldn’t have reacted that way. They’d actually screwed in that old ruin. Inside those tumbledown walls. No door. No roof. Right out in the open, almost.

For just a moment he was there. On top of Barbara. Her eyes were half shut, her lips peeled back, her naked body writhing under him as he thrust.

He banished the image, ashamed of his minor betrayal and the desire it stirred. No harm in daydreaming, he told himself. He had such fantasies often, and not just about Barbara. But he’d never cheated on Jean. He planned to keep it that way.

“You’re coming up on it,” Barbara said.

Pete slowed nearly to a full stop by the time he made the right-hand turn. The road ahead looked as if it had gone ignored by a generation of repair crews. Only a few faint traces remained of its center line. The gray, sunbaked asphalt was cracked, crumbling, pocked with holes.

The van pitched and bounced, swerved to miss the worst of the potholes. Larry found himself hanging onto the armrest.

“You want to slow down?” Barbara suggested.

“You want to get there, don’t you?”

“In one piece, if that’s feasible.”

A bump rammed the seat against Larry’s rump. His teeth clashed.

“Goddamn it!” Barbara snapped.

“Okay, okay. Didn’t see that one coming.”

After he eased off the gas, the ride was still rough, but not punishing. Larry relaxed his grip on the armrest. Looking out his side window, he saw the rusted-out hulk of an overturned car. Its roof was mashed in and it had no wheels. It was well beyond the embankment bordering the road, surrounded by the desert’s litter of broken rock, by cactus and scrub brush. He couldn’t imagine how it had come to be belly-up. He considered mentioning the wreck, but decided to keep silent. The thing would probably inspire another story concept from Pete.

No doubt a perfectly mundane explanation for how it got there. Maybe it broke down and was abandoned by the roadside. People had come along later, pushed it out there for the hell of it, and flipped it over. Had nothing better to do. If someone wanted to salvage the tires, rolling the thing probably seemed more sensible than jacking it up one corner at a time.

Not just someone.

Larry felt a quick rush of joy.

A roving band of desert scavengers. A primitive, bloodthirsty pack.

Maybe they don’t just wait for breakdowns. Maybe they block the road or booby-trap it, then ambush the unlucky travelers. They slaughter the men. They take the women back to their lair — maybe an abandoned mine — for fun and games.

Not bad. Worth toying around with later to see if he could make it work. He needed a new idea. And soon.

“Just around the bend,” Barbara said.

Larry peered out the windshield, but the view ahead was blocked by low, rocky slopes. The road curved through a gap between the desolate rises.

Maybe I can work the ghost town into the scavenger idea, he thought as they entered the narrow pass.

“Thar she blows!” Pete announced.