Bill Pronzini - Shackles

I hesitated for a moment, with the gun balanced in the palm of my hand. But only for a moment. I had to have a weapon and this one was available-and deadly enough. What difference did it make if I added the theft of a handgun to the theft of food and clothing, to breaking and entering and unlawful occupation of a premises? There had been a time, not so very long ago, when any sort of illegal activity had gone against my grain. But it didn’t seem to matter much now. Principles, ethics, were for men whose lives had not been turned upside down, who had not spent three months chained to the wall of a mountain cabin.

I took the revolver and the box of cartridges into the bedroom, and loaded each chamber before I undressed and got back into bed. The thought of the.22 there on the nightstand, loaded, ready, waiting, was another kind of medicine to help me sleep and make me well again.

It was a few minutes past nine when I finished writing the note, the last thing I had to do before leaving.

I anchored it down on the kitchen table with a can of creamed corn, so it wouldn’t blow off and maybe get overlooked. Six lines written on a torn-off piece of paper sack with a marking pen I’d found, addressed to the A-frame’s owners, Tom and Elsie Carder, whose names and Stockton address I’d gotten from an old letter in the pocket of a woman’s Windbreaker. Six lines that apologized anonymously for breaking in, for the damage I’d done and the things I’d taken; that promised I would make restitution before the end of the summer. Six lines that meant what they said.

I wrote them because I had been wrong yesterday, when I’d said to myself that breaking the law no longer mattered to me, that principles and ethics were for men whose lives had not been turned upside down. The truth was, I hadn’t lost any of my respect for the law, nor any of the principles by which I had always lived. The ordeal I had been through hadn’t done that to me, and what I intended to do in the name of justice wouldn’t do it to me either. There was a fine line here, such a fine line: You could kill someone who had wronged you terribly, you could compromise your principles that much and still be able to live with yourself; but if you compromised them completely, if you threw all your beliefs and ideals out the window, then you also threw out your humanity and you were no better than the man who had wronged you or all the outlaws you had done battle with over the years.

This understanding came to me earlier today, when I gathered up the journal pages and my eye fell on one of those I’d written about my old man:… vowing to myself that I would not be like my old man, I would not, I would not drink whiskey and I would not steal and cheat… I’m reasonably honest, I don’t willingly inflict pain on those I care about or on any decent human being. Whatever else I am, whatever my shortcomings, I am not my old man’s son .

And I’m not. The words gave me a jolt for that reason. I will soon take the law into my own hands, yes; I believe I have a right to do that under the circumstances. But at the same time I still do not believe in stealing and cheating and willingly inflicting pain on anyone except a mortal enemy, and I never will, and I must never do any of those things except under extreme duress and then only if I’m prepared to pay the price.

I am not my old man’s son.

I went down the areaway, out through the rear doors onto the snow-crusted platform porch. The sky was mostly clear today, mottled here and there with pale puffs and streaks of cloud, and the wind was little more than a murmur. Sunlight glittered off the snow surfaces, made a prism of an icicle hanging from one of the pitched eaves. The temperature had warmed considerably, but the air still had a wintry bite. I had bundled myself up like a child from head to foot: woolen cap pulled down over my ears, woolen muffler, the fur-lined gloves, turtleneck sweater and lumberman’s shirt and faded Levi’s, a padded bush jacket that came down to thigh level, three pairs of socks, and a pair of heavy, high-top hiking boots. My wallet and the journal pages were in pants pockets; the.22 Sentinel revolver was in the zippered right pocket of the bush jacket.

I still wasn’t feeling all that well, but I thought I could travel all right as long as I didn’t tumble into any more snowbanks and the weather stayed clear. I had spent too many days cooped up inside the cabin walls to want to endure another one here. I needed movement, I needed to get out of these mountains and back to the kind of environment I understood. I needed to begin the hunt.

Getting through the snowpack from the porch to the woods was slow, hard work. Once I was in among the trees, though, the drifts weren’t as deep and I could make better time. Even so, it took me twenty minutes to reach the road, angling away from the A-frame so I could come out of the trees where they made a thick border close to the road. That way my tracks would be less conspicuous.

A snowplow crew hadn’t been along here recently; there were a couple of inches of slushy, tire-rutted snow on the road surface. I managed to jump out into one of the near ruts and stayed in one or another as I set off downhill, slapping clinging particles of snow off my pants and jacket. Anyone who cared to look closely could see where I’d come from, but maybe nobody would care. In any case, if I encountered anybody I had a story worked out to explain what I was doing tramping around this wilderness on foot.

The wet snow in the ruts was slippery and I had to keep my head down and pick my way along. Just as well, because the sun hurt my eyes whenever its glare penetrated the tree branches and reflected off snow. The morning had a hushed, crackling quality, so that each little sound seemed magnified. But I had gone about a third of a mile, past two more snow-blocked access drives, before I heard the one sound I was listening for.

It came as a low whine at first, some distance behind me. I tensed, and my heart began to beat faster-but I stayed where I was. No point in trying to avoid contact now. I had to deal with people again sooner or later, and maybe I could wangle a ride to the nearest town.

The engine sound got progressively louder until I could hear the change in tempo as the driver geared down for each curve. By the time the vehicle came in sight, I had moved to the edge of the road and was standing there waiting for it. It was a black Ford Bronco with oversized snow tires, the two rear ones wearing chains-the same Bronco, probably, that I had seen parked near the occupied cabin two days ago. The driver slowed when he saw me and as soon as he did I started waving one arm over my head, signaling for him to stop. But I didn’t step out into the Bronco’s path, and a good thing, too: It rolled right on past me in low gear. Only then the driver must have changed his mind, because the brake lights flashed and the big squat vehicle skewed to a halt thirty yards away on my side of the road.

I moved toward it, hurrying a little, trying to make myself look purposeful and yet harmless. The side windows were smoke-tinted so that you couldn’t look in from outside; but the driver had to be looking out at me, all right, sizing me up. When I halted alongside his door I stood motionless for a few seconds, fighting the tension, letting him take a good look. I must have passed muster because the window finally began to wind down, and in a few seconds I was face-to-face with the man behind the wheel-the first human being I had seen in ninety-three days.

He was about forty, heavyset, bandit-mustached, wearing a cowboy hat and a fleece-lined sheepskin coat. The macho outdoors type. The only expression on his face and in his eyes was a wary curiosity. He wasn’t alone in the car; the other occupant stood on the backseat peering over the guy’s shoulder with six inches of spit-slick red tongue lolling out. Big German shepherd, the kind with hard yellow eyes and teeth like spikes-the kind you’d walk a block out of your way to avoid if you saw it unleashed on a street corner.