Salamanders
by Pete Murphy
Chapter 5
The
Kids
Freddie waited by the trestle, watched for the
Finn shook his head. "Oliver, is this what Miss Coleman calls
'displaying my intelligence'?"
I laughed too loud. We didn't want Mr. Boylan to hear us, come
running out the back of his house again.
"I mean really, Oliver, aren't we getting too old for this?
Except for Billy and Freddie, I'm the little kid here, and I'm thirteen."
I managed to slow my laughter enough to speak.
"We do this every year for Halloween, Finn. Why stop now?"
"But you're older. I'm supposed to be looking up to you."
I rolled onto my back, laughed again. Finn laughed with me.
Across the tracks, Connie stood up and yelled, almost screamed it at
us:
"You-guys-keep-the-noise-down-o-ver there!"
Then we were all laughing much too loud but didn't care.
A minute later Freddie was running toward us on the tracks. He
bellowed, "Here she comes, girls!" then tally-hoed and scrambled up
the bank toward Zack and Connie.
The train roared around the curve and across the trestle.
In ten seconds we were all on our feet, whooping and cheering as the
Boylan outhouse tore from the ground, whizzed past Freddie, hit the crest of
the yard, lifted as though in slow motion, landed again and skidded down the
hill at forty-five miles an hour. It stopped abruptly at the fence in a
thunderous explosion and settled into a heap of dust and firewood.
The knotted end of the rope buzzed through the air and cracked like
a bullwhip against the trees. It scattered bark, shaved the tops of high weeds,
moved faster with every crack. The front end of the train whisked it, threw it,
cracked it faster yet across the front of itself about a hundred feet toward
Philly and off the side of Lumber Products' wall. It bounced only a little,
then sailed, found its arc and zipped back across itself, as if someone had
cast a fly-line and snapped it back and down and level across the top of the
tracks. The rope buckled and bounced along the side of the train till it hooked
onto something and stretched. Didn't hurt the train a bit. Train kept moving.
Rope snapped. It was neat.
The Studebaker over at our side, its wheel hubs buried deep in the
ground, hardly moved.
"Bless you my son," Finn yelled at me between the
hysterics, running.
Five minutes later, back at El Yoyo, the Salamander Gang, all lying
on our backs and gazing at the sky, held our stomachs, laughed some more, and
discussed future world events and escapades, thinking of eternities and
immortalities until the sun went off to sit on the hill.
#
A Most Terrifying Business
The tall man was hurting now.
Even here on the hill the pines stood too thick to see the river far below. Here and there patches of
the dying hickory tops stood their slippery ground knee‑deep in the swirl
and the shiny reds and grays of the wind‑soaked crags loomed beyond and
only occasionally against pieces of sky. The river's hiss was there, and the drone,
the swish and smell of it. But he could not see it.
The tall man was not afraid. He knew they would find him. He could
wait.
Some of the pain was going away. A little blood had crusted on his
lips. One of his upper front teeth had broken off. He massaged his gums with
his tongue and tried to bend his arm. Pain shot to his shoulder. Something must
be broken, he thought. If he let it hang at his side it was not so bad.
The tall man did not know where he was, but had found the river and now
knew the direction he needed to go. He wanted a weapon. There must be a
farmhouse, and a phone, but he was sure there was not much chance help would
get to him in time. He needed to go back and help Billy.
He looked back among the trees but saw no movement yet. Little sunlight
remained now. The shadows were disappearing within the thickness of the pine‑needled
forest floor. There is still time, he thought, for distance, before it becomes
too dark, maybe get to a place further down and closer to the river, where I
can wait, and sleep.
He felt tired.
I'll get to you, Brody, he thought. I'll get to you. Believe it. He
tried to spit the anger from his brain. His head must be clear. He had much to
do.
They were up among the trees. Somewhere. Worrying. Waiting. And lost: If it was too dark for him
it was too dark for them. He was certain someone had driven the green van away,
Bags and his little pal. That left three or four of them out here, maybe more.
He was not sure how to handle that, but felt better now lying in the dead
underbrush with his bad arm draped over his stomach. He had gone a little too
close to the damp air above the river, but knew they would not find him there.
He could sleep in peace for a little while.
#
All was black. Only half the moon was there and often behind clouds.
Now and then it pushed reflections of itself past the tips of the trees and
down into the forest where he lay.
The tall man's eyes had been open a long time. He stood and brushed the
river‑mist from his khaki shirt with the good arm and moved back up the
hill, feeling his way among the branches with his shoulders and sometimes with
the sides of his face and head.
He squinted into the blackness, remembered that from here the ground
flattened for a long way. If there was any light at all he would see it. It was
warm in the blanket of the forest away from the river: Maybe they had no fire.
Maybe they'd returned to the icehouse. No. They knew he was still here in the
woods. Somewhere. They'd followed him this far. He shut his eyes for a little
while then opened them and scanned the distance again.
He saw a faint flickering off to his right.
The tall man felt his way toward it, groping with his feet. He was not
afraid. As long as they were near the brightness of the fire they would not see
him. If anyone were not near the fire, but here in the darkness with him, it
would not matter: If he could not see them, they would not see him.
He needed to be very quiet.
The tall man got onto his hands and knees, but his arm hurt too much
and he could not see the tiny flickering from that position. He stood and moved
on.
After a quarter mile he stopped in a deep ravine about twenty feet from
the fire. He lay on his back and breathed through his nose and pinched the air
out between his lips. He had time. They could not know he was so close.
He heard no sound and crawled to the top of the ravine. Two of them
were lying down. Another man was propped against a tree, a shotgun in his lap,
his eyes closed. The fire was small. Most certainly they felt safe about him.
For a moment he considered getting further away, but decided it would
not amount to much in the darkness. When the morning came they would be moving
again. The advantage was his now.
He did not have long to wait.
In a little while he heard a stirring at the fire and again crept up
the side of the ravine. The man closest to him had gotten up and was lumbering
toward him. The man at the tree was still asleep, his head sagging, arms limp,
the gun on his lap.
The tall man watched the moving silhouette against the backdrop of the
fire. The man stopped about four feet from him and peed into the dead leaves.
The fire crackled.
He moved toward the figure. It seemed to take a long time. He stood.
The man was still peeing.
He clamped his good hand against the man's mouth, thumb and forefinger
pinching the nose. He brought his knee up and in hard against the base of the
spine and his hurt arm up to clamp the neck. He gritted his teeth and winced.
The man's arms flailed the air. The tall man jabbed hard with his knee and
pulled harder with his arms and felt the pain. He heard a strange muted sound,
a muffled grunt, then lowered the limp body by the neck with his good arm.
The fire crackled.
It had taken about ten seconds.
He saw no movement at the fire. He dragged the body behind the tree and
searched it. He wanted a knife, but found nothing useful. He had no weapon
except his arms.
His heart pounded. Sweat soaked into the hair at his temples. His bad
arm felt numb. He crept up the embankment and slithered his way on all fours
toward the fire. He was not afraid.
He crawled by inches, tried to stay low and in the darkness, away from
the firelight.
After many minutes he had circled their camp, dragging a big petrified
knotty burl of a pine‑knee beside him with the good arm. He was behind
the tree now and could see the dull blue glint of the gun barrel tilted toward
the ground two feet away.
The tall man stood and stepped beside the sleeping figure, fixed his
eyes on the eyes, both arms stretched up and out taut, searching for the arc,
his body twisting, his arms swinging like a dancer swings, pulling hard and
down, his knuckles white around the heavy burl now, down and in. He stayed with
the arc and slammed the pine‑knee hard down onto the tight‑skinned
brow.
Blood spurted up to his face. The gun exploded near his foot. In a
breath the other man was up and reaching for his weapon.
The tall man grabbed the barrel at his feet, pulled hard, yanked again,
but the dead fingers had frozen at the grip. In the next moment, the other
shotgun gleamed, spun around to meet him. He dropped the barrel and dove behind
the tree out of the fireglow as the shot rang out and scattered pieces of bark
and flesh into the darkness with him. His hand felt on fire. He thrashed deeper
into the thicket, three‑legged and humpbacked, skipping his good arm like
an antenna over the ground. Another explosion cut across the air above him. He
smelled the burnt cordite.
The man cannot run and shoot, he thought, and lifted himself, still
scrambling, upright now and running, bouncing off trees, his good arm flailing
the night. After a while he felt wrapped in darkness and slowed a little.
He wondered if it was a pumpgun.
Quiet is better now, he thought, and turned to his left. He heard the
hunter trotting twenty yards away, stopping, searching, jogging again, stalking
now, and he knew after a little while some of the danger had passed.
The tall man turned left again and made his way back toward the ravine.
He needed the river now. He could follow the river.
And the sun. He needed the sun to come back.
At the ravine he broke into a steady trot, stumbling now and then on
the bigger rocks, trying not to feel the pain. He tried running on the balls of
his feet to lessen the clatter of the stones. When he smelled the river‑mist
he slowed and climbed into the thicket. He heard the river almost on him and
got down to a crawl, feeling with his good hand for the edge. The ground had
heaved out of its slope and into cliff. He back‑crawled a few feet and
stood, step‑felt his way, shuffling with the chasm somewhere at his side.
He needed to rest. His hand was still on fire and the bone in his arm
felt worse. He could do nothing with that.
He tried to make the silence of the woods a part of him, tried to hear
the huge oak breathe as he leaned against it. His heart pounded too loudly. His
nostrils flared. The river mist began to choke his lungs and he clenched his
teeth to slow the gulping noises. He stretched a leg out into the darkness
feeling for the edge with his foot, then brought it back and clawed the tree
with his fingers, afraid the earth might slip him down into the river. He had
not known, before now, how close he was to the edge.
He let his body slide against the tree to the ground and sat.
Silence.
Then, SNAP:
Soft footfalls in the leaves so close he knew the hunter would hear his
heart, hear him hold his mouth and nose tight with the bleeding hand. He pulled
the air in through his lips like pulling through a straw, tried not to gasp.
The leaves stirred behind him, close to the oak.
A cat‑crunch: One foot heavy, hesitating, another in the air ‑
a left or right front and the opposite rear ‑ poised and waiting. It
seemed to listen for his gasp. Then, much later: another step, catlike: two
feet in the air ‑ front, back ‑ worrying again on the silence. He
felt it waiting for his choke. Hearing none, it moved again, a step, then
silence, then another step, heavy and constant until it was beside him, then
passing. He heard it pass and leave the tree, move closer to the edge, into the
darkness above the river. The tall man could see the figure now, its back to
him, and the gun in its hands dipping toward the river. He could get to his
knees. He could lunge and push the back‑middle with his left hand and
grab the gun with the bleeding right. He could do that.
The figure turned.
And his body tightened, seemed to draw within itself, taut.
The figure turned, slowly, like on a spit. The gun turned with it,
pointing at the ground at first, then little by little up into the blacker‑black
of the figure's silhouette. Then he could not see it, but he knew. The gun was
pointed at his head.
The tall man stared at the silhouette, saw the eye, watched it sucking
in the river moon, hovering like the glowing yellow body of a firefly.
But he had become the shadow of the oak.
The eye enveloped him and he fixed his eyes back into it and froze,
unblinking, sweating. He wondered if his sweat glistened at the eye. The figure
was still.
And now the tall man was afraid.
He needed the rage again. His fists clenched.
The eye blinked.
The tall man spun and rolled his body over, threw his feet out to the
edge and clawed the dirt with all the fingers of both hands. He spun, twisted
hard, fast and smooth, slammed the air and caught the cat‑legs, followed
through and twisted more than his back wanted, and the hunter dropped over the
edge.
The gun fell over his legs. Two hands grasped his shin and he clawed
the ground still harder and jabbed once hard with the other foot and kicked
again, tried to grab the gun with his bad hand, his good hand clawing harder
into the ground. The gun went over the edge. He kicked again.
The hunter screamed, and the scream whirled down into the void to meet
the river and the rocks.
After a while he pulled his fingers from the earth and crawled like a
three‑legged salamander into the leaves beyond the tree where he could
sleep.
He wished he could dream. Maybe the fear of fear would not be there.
The rage could leave him then. He knew there was a place he would not need the
rage to chase the fear. Someday he would find it.
If only he could dream. He needed to dream.
#
Billy
A splinter of sunrise wedged through the trees and woke him. The tall
man rolled onto his side. Pain shot through his arm and stung his neck. He
pushed himself up with his good arm and sat for a moment, the cliff‑edge
ten feet in front of him. Pieces of the forest were still black. There is
enough gray, he thought, to find my way back. He needed to see about Billy, get
him out of there.
The tall man tried to tuck his arm into his shirt but the pain was too
great. He stood and let the arm relax at his side and it was not so bad. The
ravine was blacker than the rest of the forest but easier to navigate and he'd
have his bearings when the gully flattened out and left the woods at the other
end. He'd first found the ravine when he'd escaped and left Billy alone with
them. He thought about that as he made his way through the washout. Maybe he'll
be all right, he thought.
After twenty minutes he still could see no clearing and began to wonder
if this was the same gully. He hadn't realized he'd come this far into the
woods, then remembered he'd been running. He paced a little faster. The air was
cold, crisp, and its cleanness cleared his head. He felt some strength
returning. In another ten minutes the woods thinned. The light here was pale,
the sun still behind him and beyond the trees, but he saw the squat abandoned
icehouse in the clearing about twenty yards ahead and to the right. The green
van was gone. He saw no signs of life. Maybe they'd taken Billy with them. He
stepped up to it carefully, remembering the screams.
The door was open. He walked up the steps and onto the porch. It was
darker inside. Dusk fell through the roof. The main room was empty except for
the long massive butcher's table in the center. He squinted, stared at the
three freezers along the far wall.
Two of the doors were closed, the third one open. His room. He eased
around the walls toward it, looked in. The guy was still there, a wide pool of
blood and flesh under the neck. He stared at the pieces of flesh, tried to
remember if rage or fear had given him the strength. He shoved the idea from
his brain and went to the next room, pulled the door open.
"Billy!
Oh God. No, Billy."
They'd
hung him with fencewire from meathooks in the center of the room. The wire had
cut into his neck. His head sagged against his chest. His tongue was swollen,
sticking out. It looked purple in the gray light. Two fingers of his right hand
were half gone. Blood had caked at the stubs and a small pool of it had formed
on the floor beneath him.
He wrapped his arms around Billy's thighs, lifted and lowered him to
the floor, winced at the pain. As he neared the floor and could see clearer he
saw the stubs of Billy's fingers lying near the wall. He felt sick.
"Oh, God," he said again, and leaned against the wall, slid
to the floor and closed his eyes. "Brody," he said. "You
bastard." He said it knowing, trying not to know, it was his fault, no one
else's, for getting Billy involved at all. It made no difference he'd tried to
fix it, to stop it. Yesterday Billy was alive, frightened, waiting for him,
begging him on the phone to hurry, stop it all, turn it all around. But it was
too late then. He should've thought of that earlier, never gone back to
Christ, Billy. I've just killed four people. This wasn't supposed to
happen. Never. Christ. We're thieves, not killers.
The tall man put his forehead down on his arms.
#