Bill Pronzini - A Wasteland of Strangers

“I don’t have a family.”

“Friends?”

“No friends, either. And no woman, if that’s your next question. I made the mistake of getting married once. I won’t make it again.”

“What happened? Or don’t you want to talk about it?”

“No, I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s just say she decided big and ugly wasn’t as exciting as she thought it’d be.”

“You’re not ugly, John.”

“The hell I’m not. I look in the mirror, I see what everybody else sees. Big, ugly, mean-looking... dangerous. Face and body like mine, I must be some kind of monster.”

“There’s nothing that awful about the way you look.”

“Nothing a team of plastic surgeons couldn’t fix. Don’t patronize me.”

“I wasn’t patronizing you, and I didn’t say it to get on your good side. I mean it.”

“Okay, you mean it. Some people don’t judge a book by its cover. But ask most of your friends and neighbors what they think, what they thought the minute they laid eyes on me. Ask the guy who wrote the newspaper editorial, ask Novak, ask Trisha Marx’s father.”

“That’s the poison talking,” I said.

“The what?”

“Poison. Indians believe there’s poison everywhere, in all things. Each person is born with some, and we can be infected with more, by others and by ourselves. Poison is the handmaiden of hate — my father said that. Together they can sour our hearts, eventually destroy us.”

“I get the point, teacher. So there’s poison in me, plenty of it. But I can’t get rid of it without getting rid of myself. Simple fact is, I wouldn’t be sitting here with a couple of holes in me and a murder charge hanging over my head if I looked like the frigging boy next door. And if you don’t believe it it’s because you don’t live inside this body.”

“No, but I live inside an Indian woman’s body. I’m not a stranger to mindless prejudice.”

A few seconds trickled away before he said, “I don’t doubt it. So you ought to be able to understand how it is with me.”

“Up to a point.”

“What point? The amount of violence I’ve had to deal with? I’m a man, oversized and ugly, and that makes me a target.”

“A small young woman isn’t a target?”

“Sure she is. But her odds, your odds against it are a lot better than mine. You haven’t had much violence in your life before tonight, I’ll bet.”

“Not directed at me, no. But that doesn’t mean it won’t happen again. Or that if it does, I’ll survive it. There are as many men in this county who hate women and Indians as there are who hate big white strangers. The same men, many of them.”

“Look, I don’t want to argue with you. Maybe you’re right, maybe we’re more alike than I think and it’s only the kind and amount of crap we have to deal with that makes us different.”

“There’s another difference, too. You keep dwelling on your crap, your poison. You let it rule your life.”

“And you don’t? No sourness or anger in your heart? Well, then, you’re a better person than me. Or else you’ve got a thicker hide.”

“I didn’t say I have no bitterness or anger. I’m angry right now. My skin is thick enough, but I can still be poisoned.”

“You don’t show it.”

“Indians learn to mask their emotions,” I said. “And I channel mine into teaching, volunteer work.”

“So you are a better person. Can’t be easy to keep a mask on or to turn the other cheek in a place like Pomo.”

“Easier than it would be if I drifted from place to place, always alone. I was born in Pomo, it’s my home.”

“Right,” John Faith said. “And that’s the biggest difference between you and me.”

“What is?”

“I’ve never had a home.”

That was all he would say; after the words were out he seemed to retreat inside himself again. It’s the only place he feels comfortable and secure, I thought. Within his own skin.

I watched him for a time, sitting motionless and staring into the cold shadows beyond the candle glow. Swaddled in my thermal blanket, he seemed not nearly so large, but aged, shrunken somewhat, like an old man waiting quietly for his spirit to leave and enter the Abode of the Dead. But the illusion was false. I remembered him as he’d been earlier, when he’d finished changing his bandages: his bare torso sweat-oiled, the candlelight giving it a burnished look so that he resembled a life-size figure sculpted in bronze; shadows altering the rugged contours of his head and face without softening them. In that aspect, huge and dark and stoic, he might have been one of the People — a warrior marked by spear and arrow wounds after battle. One of the legendary chiefs, perhaps. Konocti, Kah-bel...

But that, too, was illusion. When he’d gotten up to bring the water bottle to me, he’d become again what he really was: another big, unfathomable white man. That was what I’d thought at the time, anyway. Now I wondered if there might not actually be something of the warrior in him, a man different from other men, strong, and big in ways other than size. I was not sure I liked him, or would care to know him well; but I did understand and feel compassion for him, and I sensed that he was an honest person, a good person, and most if not all of what he’d told me tonight was the truth. How can a wounded fugitive who risks his own safety to save a woman he barely knows from sexual assault be either a cold-blooded murderer or a threat to any community?

But the way I felt didn’t change the fact that I was his prisoner and would remain his prisoner for several more hours. Nor did it help the time pass any more quickly. Nor did it prevent my body from protesting the treatment it had been subjected to tonight, or exhaustion from creeping through me until my limbs felt as heavy as pepperwood logs. My eyelids were heavy, too. Yet it seemed important to stay awake and alert; to give in to sleep was a kind of betrayal.

I dozed in spite of myself. And jerked awake.

What time was it? I fought the urge to look at my watch.

So cold in here. I snuggled down deeper under the blanket.

Had Mateo Munoz killed Storm? If John Faith was innocent, then Munoz must be guilty. Suppose he ran all the way into Mexico? He had family there. Could the authorities find him, bring him back...?

Dozing again. Wake up! Stay awake.

But I was so tired...

It was nearly three before I went home again. Details to clear up, my recommendation on the shooting death of Earle Banner to bolster Mary Jo’s report. Two cups of coffee and some pointless talk with Verne Erickson. And still no word on John Faith. It was the frustration of that, more than weariness and throbbing pain, that finally prodded me out of the station and back to the house.

Audrey wasn’t there. Just Mack, and my bed neatly made. I was relieved at first, but when I popped another codeine capsule and crawled into the sack, it seemed cold and empty. Audrey’s scent lingered, and I remembered the warmth of her nearly nude body pressed against mine. A feeling of loneliness and isolation welled up, the kind a castaway on a sand spit that was shrinking away around him might feel. Much as I didn’t want to admit it, I needed someone now more than ever, someone who cared — I needed Audrey.

The painkiller knocked me out before too long and I slept another five hours and woke up just as tired, just as empty. Audrey was on my mind as I showered and shaved and dressed. Audrey and Storm, intertwined, like some sort of two-headed creature. I’d treated her shabbily, not only last night but for most of the time I’d known her. She cared so much; couldn’t I care just a little?

I put the leash on Mack and took him for a short walk in the thin, cold rain. By the time I came back I’d built up a strong urge to see Audrey, apologize to her. Nothing more than that; I wouldn’t tell her I needed her because I was afraid the need was surface, temporary, and I wouldn’t hurt her with false hopes. Just let her know that she mattered to me, even if I hadn’t shown it before.