Peter Abrahams - Lights Out

Eddie cut a deep notch, then stepped around the support and cut a second notch on the other side, leaving a core of wood about six inches in diameter. It didn’t take long; he had chopped lots of firewood as a kid, and the occasional tree in the forest, just for fun.

A beautiful night. Moonlight shone on his breath and Jack’s, rising above them, on the flowing water, on the silver blade of the ax. The stream bubbled at their feet. Everything was going to be all right.

Eddie spoke:

A noise like of a hidden brook

In the leafy month of June,

That to the sleeping woods all night

Singeth a quiet tune.

“What’s that?” Jack said.

“ ‘The Ancient Mariner,’ ” Eddie replied. “Ever read it?”

“Haven’t had much time for reading,” Jack said. “Heard of it, naturally.” He checked his watch. “It doesn’t sound like much from that bit.”

“No?”

“Moon-June stuff-no edge.”

Eddie replaced the leather cover on the blade. He looked at his brother. Jack was studying him, a complex expression in his eyes. Then the clouds finally closed over the moon, and Eddie couldn’t see Jack’s eyes at all, couldn’t see anything until his own pupils widened in the darkness. “What’s the time?” he said.

“Four forty-two, a minute ago.”

Eddie nodded. “I’d better get started.”

“I’m all set.”

“Any questions?”

“Just one-how come you know poetry by heart?”

“I had the time.”

Eddie waited for Jack to say something. When he didn’t, Eddie said, “Stay out of sight,” climbed up the bank and began walking back the way they had come with the ax on his shoulder, leaving his brother under the bridge with the bikes and the backpacks. He should have said good luck, or shaken hands, or something, he couldn’t think what.

Something cold landed on his nose and melted there.

“It’s snowing,” Jack called after him in a stage whisper. “Is that going to make a difference?”

“They don’t follow FAA regulations,” Eddie called back.

He counted his paces, three hundred. Enough? He counted fifty more. He studied the trees that grew near the track. Snow was falling steadily now, brightening the night. Eddie chopped a thick branch off a hardwood tree-a beech, he thought, from the smoothness of the bark; there had been a lot of beech in the woods behind New Town-and dragged it into the track. He laid the branch at an angle, as though the wind had brought it down, making sure that the biggest clump of sub-branches covered the track, then walked a few steps away to check his work. He returned, dropped wet leaves on the scar the ax had made in the wood, and moved out of sight.

Eddie clipped the leather cover back on the blade, stuck the ax in the back of his belt, sat on a log. Snow fell silently through the trees. He waited.

Jonathan C. McBright, professional robber specializing in banks, had said: “It’s like any challenging work-details, details, details. You’ve got to picture everything before it happens. Even then, there’s always the unforeseen.” Eddie tried to picture everything: a white plane with green trim, somewhere above the clouds; an alarm ringing in the farmhouse, a few miles away; Jack waiting under the bridge, three hundred and fifty steps up the track. He could summon up those images, but no feeling of reassurance accompanied them. Had he forgotten something? He tried to figure out what it might be, and was still trying when he heard an engine sound, distant and muffled by falling snow but growing louder. He crouched behind the log.

Headlights appeared on the track, two yellow cones filled with snowflakes that blackened in their glow. Eddie recognized the outline of the poultry truck. It was going fast, maybe fast enough to plow right through the branch or sweep it aside. Details, details, details. There was nothing he could do but watch.

The headlight beams reached the branch, snow-covered now, blending with the track. It wasn’t going to work, Eddie thought. But then the horn honked and the wheels locked. The truck went into a skid, sliding along the track, the rear end swinging around. It struck the branch sideways and came to a stop.

The passenger door opened and Julio stepped out, wearing a ski jacket and a tuque with a tassel dangling from the top.

“What the fuck?” he said, walking into the headlight glare. “It’s a goddamn tree.”

“Move it,” called the driver from the cab.

“Sure,” said Julio, switching to Spanish, “move it.” He approached the branch, grabbed a small stem, tugged. His feet slipped out from under him and he fell hard on his back. Eddie heard the driver laugh.

“Fuck you,” said Julio.

“Watch your language,” the driver told him.

Julio got up, muttering to himself in Spanish. Eddie caught only one word: “chiropractor.”

Julio reached into the tangle again, pulled. The branch shifted a few inches. The driver came down from the cab to help him. Someone else got out too. A much smaller figure, who hopped down, landed lightly: Gaucho. He wore a cowboy hat, vest, chaps, a gun belt.

“Are we going to be late?” he asked.

“Don’t worry,” the driver answered.

Gaucho stood in front of the truck, watched Julio and the driver drag the branch to the side. The cleaved end passed right by his feet. Eddie could see the marks of the blade, straight, gleaming, unnatural. Gaucho stared at them. Then he bent down, picked up a handful of snow, tried to make a snowball, failed.

“How come I can’t make a snowball?”

“Too dry,” said the driver. “Let’s go.”

“Snow,” said Julio, as they got back in the cab. “This country. I wish I was going with the kid.”

“Stop whining,” said the driver. “You’re making more money in a month than your father made in his life.”

“My father was an idiot.”

The doors slammed shut. The driver straightened the wheels, inched forward, the tires spinning in the snow. Squealing conveniently, Eddie thought, as he came out of the woods, got his hands on the edge of the cargo floor that protruded beyond the slatted sides, and pulled himself up. As the truck picked up speed, he climbed over and down into the cargo space.

He got on his hands and knees, crawled along the floor. The chicken cages were gone. There was no cargo but the canvas bags, about a dozen, piled against the rear of the cab, and a small suitcase nearby. In the light reflected off the falling snow, Eddie could see the Mickey Mouse decal glued to its side.

He rose, picking up one of the canvas bags. Over the top of the cab he saw the bridge, snow-covered and deserted. He dropped the canvas bag over the side, picked up another, dropped it out too, and then the rest. He counted them: eleven.

The truck slowed as it came to the bridge. Eddie crawled to the back, climbed over, jumped down. He lost his balance, fell, rolled to the side of the track, the covered blade of the ax digging into his back. Other than that, everything was perfect. So far so good-punch line to a joke he didn’t know. Jack could tell him on the way back.

The truck kept going. It rolled across the bridge, making a loud creaking sound, then went around a bend. For a few moments its taillights blinked through the trees; then they vanished. Eddie rose, ran to the stream, down the bank, under the bridge.

He heard a footstep behind him, felt something hard prod his back. “Don’t move,” Jack said.

“For Christ’s sake.”

“Sorry. I thought they’d got you. That honking.”

“They’re not going to honk us to death. And I said no guns.”

“That didn’t seem prudent,” Jack replied. “How many?”

There was no point arguing. “Eleven,” Eddie said. “We don’t have room for them all.”