Dennis Yates - Minus Tide

It wasn’t until the fourth glass that Mitch had felt anything like real consciousness begin to rise above the buzzing hive of nerves of his thawing body. His voice had remained shaky and thin.

“What’s going to happen when that guy from the other boat tells his people what you did?” Mitch said.

Dawkins downed his glass and quickly refilled it. His face reddened. “Well with any luck he won’t make it back to tell anybody, will he Mitch? Seemed to me he wasn’t doing so hot.”

“But what if he does make it back? His guys are going to be coming here to find out what happened.”

“It won’t be just them,” the sheriff said. “Everyone’s going to be paying a visit.”

“But you’re going to give the money back to that guy in Portland, right?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“Jesus Sheriff, what are you talking about?”

“We could have been killed out there, Mitch. I want my hazard pay, and I know you do too. It’s not my problem they picked unreliable people.”

“You didn’t have to shoot them. They weren’t going to do anything.”

“They were going to rip us off, Mitch. Couldn’t you tell? Yelling at us like that in Mexican. I’m no racist, but I do like to do business with people that can speak our goddamn language.”

“I think they were just afraid of the light. Your lights were too bright and they must have thought that it would attract attention.”

The sheriff picked up the whiskey and drank straight from the bottle. “Whose side are you on anyways?”

“I’m just saying they weren’t going to rip us off. In fact I don’t recall either one of them drawing a weapon.”

“Well I saw what I saw too. And that really ugly one at the helm was going for a shotgun.”

Mitch had stood up and swayed. “Listen, if you’re not going to give that guy in Portland his money back, then I don’t want anything to do with this. It’s suicide and you know it.”

“Well guess what Mitch. We’re in this together, remember? And when they come, you better be standing with your partner or else things will get kind of dicey between us real fast.”

At that moment Mitch made up his mind to get Tammy and run. The next day he would go to the bank and close their savings account. He wasn’t going to tell her about what happened until everything was set. Then they’d pack up and leave in the middle of the night and if the sheriff didn’t catch them first they would go somewhere else far away and start over. But how far would they get? After having the transmission in the truck fixed last month and paying medical bills, they’d hardly have enough gas money to even get them across the state line.

When the sheriff went off into a back room again, Mitch believed that if he stayed any longer he’d be killed. But just as he managed to get to his feet the sheriff was there again. In his hand was a thick stack of money, more than enough to get set up in a new town and raise baby.

“Here’s your cut. Now go home before I change my mind,” the sheriff said.

Mitch hadn’t wanted to take it. But not to take it would have been stupid. He’d put it in his jacket without saying a word, had rinsed his face and used the sheriff’s mouthwash before driving home. Tammy had awakened when he’d crawled into bed and he told her a lie about working a burglary scene and then going to the sheriff’s house after their shift to drink a beer and watch some boxing. As he tried to fall asleep he listed more details to support his story should she ask him later. She didn’t seem angry at him for being so late and went back to sleep before he did and it had felt good having her warm body next to his.

Except he didn’t sleep at all. He kept waking up, thinking the trafficker was standing at the foot of their bed dripping blood on the floor, asking him if he knew what happened to his arm. Mitch had slipped out of bed and put a towel under the dripping faucet in the bathtub. He had to remember to stop in at the hardware store for some new washers.

Back in bed, he began to think about the money the sheriff had given him. What was happening to his life? Had the sheriff gone insane? He hadn’t always been this way, only since his dog died. When Butch was alive the sheriff seemed to have something to live for. Now it seemed like he didn’t care.

He’d decided the money was only going to bring him bad luck. And before Tammy awoke he drove back to the sheriff’s house and shoved the money through the mail slot in the front door. The sheriff was still awake and had opened the door as he fed the last wad through. He just stood there in his underwear with the near-empty bottle of Jim Beam and told Mitch that giving the money back wasn’t ever going to make his troubles go away.

When the Russians went back to the sheriff’s house to search for money and drugs they found Cyclops sitting naked on the floor eating frozen peas out of a box while clothes kicked around inside a dryer in the next room. The sight of his blackened, hoof-like feet shocked them-more satyr than human-and they could do nothing but stand quietly and stare. Cyclops hadn’t looked up when they came in, but continued to chew loudly behind a curtain of greasy hair flecked with twigs and moss. After a few minutes he asked if Dawkins and the others had been harmed and they assured him that they’d received only minor injuries during their capture. Cyclops threw the box of peas at them and warned them that if they were lying there’d be serious consequences. He told them they were fools and couldn’t be trusted with feeding chickens…

Other than anxious fishermen hoping to make the first cast of salmon season, it was that hour in the morning when it was rare to see anyone up. The storm had stirred some inhabitants of Traitor Bay from their beds while others slept on. Generators seldom used spat to life and burned off dirty smoke. The quiet vacuum left behind by the storm was slowly being filled with the pulsating grind of machines, the smell of propane and gasoline, of modern civilization kicking back to life. Ann saw a handful of homes with their lights on inside and out, people walking around checking for storm damage or sitting in their kitchens thinking about starting coffee. The dogs seemed to be busy patrolling their yards, catching the scents of distant things carried by the wind on dead leaves, twigs and trash. She scanned the roof of the store as she approached it, didn’t notice any missing shingles or damage to the chimney. She’d been worried about it for a few years now, had found bits of mortar when she cleaned the rain gutters every spring. There’d been a house down on the bay that had its chimney knocked over during a storm, and it had slid down to the edge and hung there until someone could figure out what to do about it. She’d have to call someone to come out and take a look soon. Don’t want bricks falling down on our customers.

Ann noticed all the windows looked undamaged and the lights of the Coke coolers still glowed in the back, reassuring her that the backup generators were doing their job. She stepped on the accelerator and sped past the rest of town, which on the outer edges appeared to be blacked out. When she got over the top of a big hill she was startled by bright lights shining on the road. It was as if she’d accidently driven onto a movie set. She soon drove by a repair crew setting up cones next to a crane with a cherry picker, while others worked at a downed fir with chainsaws and she could smell the tang of freshly cut wood even with the windows rolled up.

As she turned off the highway into the boat ramp parking lot, she noticed that the lights there had also been knocked out by the storm. The place was definitely showing its years of neglect. The small concrete building that used to cater to the salmon fishermen and anyone else passing by on the highway when she was a kid, was all boarded up. The old man who’d run it had died years ago and no one had wanted to take over after he was gone. Ann still remembered the perpetual tang of propane, the big steaming pots he’d cook crabs in and the smoke of hotdogs barbequing. Practically every inch of the structure was covered now with anti-cop graffiti, and only just before salmon season came would the city pay someone to come out and give it a hasty whitewash.