Ryan Jahn - The Dispatcher

He glances past the traffic to Ian Hunt across the street. The man is sticking a gas nozzle into his car and squinting at the horizon. For a moment Henry thinks Hunt is staring directly at him, but he’s not. Just squinting at the horizon, that’s all.

Ian squints over the hood of his car at a gray Dodge Ram pickup truck across the intersection. A work truck, from the looks of it. Covered in dirt. Big white toolbox in the back. Tailgate down and hanging a little low, like someone put too much weight on it and bent it out of shape. It’s been behind him for a few hours now. Every once in a while he catches sight of it, white-hot sun reflecting a shiny-nickel-on-the-sidewalk star of light on the hood. The intersection is wide and Ian’s vision isn’t quite what it once was (there was a time he boasted twenty-fifteen eyesight, better than perfect, he told people), and he can’t see the face of the man sitting behind the wheel, but as he stands there pumping gas a part of him believes it must be Henry Dean.

Ian feels a terrible urge to grab the rifled shotgun from the back seat of his car, rest it in the crook of his shoulder, and fire a deer slug into the head of the man behind the wheel. He can envision the clear glass turning instantly white as the slug hits and sends millions of cracks through it. He can envision the glass falling away from the frame seconds later, revealing a man with a hole in his temple. Big enough to stick the fat end of a pool cue into. The blood and brains splattered inside the truck like a cherry bomb was planted in a wad of raw hamburger. The man falling forward, head on the steering wheel, weighing against the horn as it blares its single idiot note.

He can picture it so clearly.

But even if he knew it was Henry, now would not be the time, here would not be the place. Here he would have but one chance, and if he missed some cowboy would tackle him to the ground, and Henry would be able to drive away to freedom with Maggie still in his possession. If he missed Henry he might hit Maggie. Even if he didn’t miss, shotgun slugs have a lot of push and it might go clean through Henry and hit Maggie.

Or some other innocent.

He hasn’t given much thought to what he’s become, to how far he is willing to go down this road of degradation, but he knows he is unwilling to shoot innocents in order to achieve his ends. For now he is unwilling to do that. Unless he has to.

And anyway, he is not certain it’s Henry. He believes it is, he believes it might be, but he is old enough and has been wrong often enough to know that reality and what he believes don’t always align with one another.

The gas nozzle clicks in his hand and stops pumping, tank full. He tops it off, getting the price to an even thirty-five bucks, then puts the nozzle back into its cradle on the pump. He screws on his gas cap. He squints once more across the intersection, then heads toward the convenience store. Halfway there he starts coughing and staggers left, into a woman and her husband leaving the store.

‘Whoa there, fella,’ the man says, catching him.

Ian puts a hand on the man’s shoulder, trying to hold himself up, and the gunshot wound cored through him screams. He grunts in pain, then closes his eyes as sweat runs down his cheeks. He swallows back the urge to cough again. He stands upright, then wipes at his cheeks with the backs of his hands, left then right.

‘You all right, hon?’ the woman says.

‘Yeah,’ Ian says. ‘Thank you. Sorry about crashing into you.’

‘Sure you’re all right?’ the man says.

‘Yeah,’ Ian says. ‘Cough just ran away with me is all.’

‘You don’t look so good,’ the man says. ‘Maybe you should sit down.’

‘Do you want some water?’ the woman asks, proffering a bottle. ‘I ain’t drunk from it yet.’

‘No, thank you,’ Ian says. ‘I’m okay now.’

He sits on the toilet in the bathroom a moment, face in his palms, trying to breathe like normal humans breathe. Every exhalation creates a high-pitched wheeze bordering on a whistle. He looks down at his shirt and sees a brown spot about the size of a quarter and spreading. But not quickly. He feels hot and cold simultaneously, and though he’s covered in sweat a shiver snakes up his spine.

He gets to his feet and walks to the sink. He pours two or three tramadol into his mouth, palms water in after them, and swallows.

He grabs a bottle of water, a pre-packaged tuna fish and cheddar sandwich, a bag of barbecue-flavored corn chips, and a box of caffeine tablets. The pain medication makes him drowsy and he’s afraid he might fall asleep at the wrong moment. He walks to the counter. His knees feel wobbly. When he gets to the front of the line he sets his purchases on the counter and the woman behind it asks if that’ll be all, dear, and he asks for a cigar. All they have are dollar shits, but he says that’s fine. He doesn’t plan on smoking it, anyway, just wants something to gnaw on while he drives, another way to keep himself awake. She rings him up and bags his purchases and he heads back into the mean Texas heat.

The Dodge Ram across the street is still there. He’s not a hundred percent it’s Henry, but the damned thing has been behind him for hours. Still, it could be a coincidence. Sometimes when driving long distances you find yourself next to someone, or behind someone, or in front of someone, and you just happen to pace one another for hours, popping into and out of sight of one another as you progress on your respective journeys, and then as the sun sets you find yourself in the same diner with them, grabbing a quick bite before bed, and when you make eye contact it’s like running into an old friend. Howdy, fellow traveler.

Sometimes that happens. There’s no reason it has to be Henry. But a feeling in his gut tells him it probably is.

Ian falls back into his car and pulls a sheet of caffeine tablets from its box. He pops four pills through the sheet’s foil back and puts them into his mouth, dry swallowing one after the other. They are very bitter. Once the pills are down he tears the plastic off his sandwich and takes a bite. It’s dry and flavorless, as he knew it would be-gas-station sandwiches are never otherwise-but his stomach grumbles all the same, anticipating its descent. He chews and swallows. A piece of cheese sticks to the roof of his mouth and he scrapes it off with a finger, chews, and swallows that as well.

He starts the car, shoves it into gear, and pulls out into the street, looking for a sign that will guide him onto Interstate 10.

He shifts into fourth and looks at his speedometer. Eighty-two miles per. His old car rattles loudly at this speed, and a loud wind whirs even with the windows rolled up, the rubber seals long ago rotted away.

He glances into his rearview mirror. Sunlight stars off the hood of a gray pickup truck about a quarter mile back.

He imagines letting it come up on him. He imagines slamming on his brakes and letting it rear-end him. He imagines stepping from his vehicle and-

He cannot do it like that. Maggie is in the truck. If it is Henry, then Maggie is in the truck. And he has already been shot. If he is going to kill Henry and get his Maggie back he will have to be much more subtle than that. Much more careful than that.

He sighs, curses under his breath, and rotates his left shoulder. He figures he’s got another three or four hours of driving left in him today, and then he’s done. He’s tired and in pain and having trouble breathing. The heat is tremendous. Cold chills run through him, giving him goose-flesh. He is covered in a sickly sweat.

‘Shit,’ he says about everything and nothing at all.

Then turns on the radio to block out his thoughts.

From Fort Stockton to Sierra Blanca the land empties further. Traffic is sparse. Rock formations litter the horizon, and the scrublands spread out before you like a sheet.