Lawrence Osborne - Hunters in the Dark

Simon, at last, sensed that something was amiss and began to turn, his eyes wide, and the bat smacked against his head and sent him reeling downward into the ditch that separated the verge from the plantation. He rolled down there with a wild grunt and his arms flailed about for a moment and then he lay quite still as the blood poured into his eyes and he saw something for a moment — the clouds, of course — and Sothea, seeing the whole thing, let out a cry that reached his ears just as they were disappearing.

Ouksa knew that he had achieved everything with one blow. He jumped over the ditch and plunged into the cane in pursuit of the girl. The stalks were so pregnant with water that as he crashed through them he was showered with drops. But soon, as the girl shot ahead of him, surprisingly fast and nimble and quiet, he passed out of the beam of the Saber’s headlights and the total darkness gradually got the better of him. He began to curse and lash out at the sugarcane with the bloodied bat. He could not afford to leave the two cars and the body like that by the side of the road, visible to anyone who happened to pass by. Soon, therefore, he slowed down and felt short of breath and dizzy and he dropped the bat and rested his hands on either knee while he caught his breath. He listened as he straightened himself up and he knew the girl was faster than him and had disappeared entirely into that sea of vegetation. He couldn’t hear her but he knew that she was still running, because the prey will always try a little harder than the predator. He wanted then to call out to her softly, in their language, and tell her lies, recall her and draw her back in. He had nothing against her, after all. He wanted to tell her sensibly that he was only doing this for his crippled wife, and it was no one’s fault that she had broken her leg in a metalworker’s shop. It had nothing to do with her, but by the same token it had nothing to do with him either. It was circumstances, little one.

Abandoning the hunt, he returned to his car and threw the bat back into the trunk. Then he looked up and down the empty road and went over to the Saber and turned off the lights. All the doors were open and he went through the car thoroughly. He found the passports and the suitcase, which was on the backseat, and when he opened it and tipped out the clothes he found the money wrapped in a plastic bag and the heroin equipment. There was some dope he could sell but some instinct told him to leave it well alone and just take the dollars. It was the simpler path. He also had a distaste for drugs and their culture. He therefore left everything except the cash and the passports — they indeed might be valuable — and he went back to his car and put them all underneath the front passenger seat. He rested again, drenched in rain and perspiration and anxiety, and then returned to the Saber, closing its doors. He went back down to the ditch and stood above the body and wondered what he should do with it. This, at least, he had not thought through very well. He could leave it there with the heroin in the car — the local cops would likely shrug — or he could drag it back into the car. Or he could drag the body far into the sugarcane. In this way it would not be discovered for a while longer, though it would imply the existence of a person who had dragged it there.

The best would be to dispose of it in a grave but he didn’t have a shovel. He turned and walked to the Saber and took the keys and toyed with the idea of taking it instead of his own car, but the stupidity of that move dawned on him and he put the keys back. He returned to his own car and the urge to just drive off took hold. There was no trace of him at the scene, nothing connecting him. Sometimes it was better to leave things as simple as possible, and he knew too that the girl had not even seen his face. He was about to take off, but as he opened the car door a pair of lights came into view on the road and he was caught in a moment of doubt.

It was a car moving quite quickly up the road toward him and there was not time to do anything but get into his taxi and try to get away before it caught up with him. He turned the key, the engine started, but it was already too late. The other car, a black SUV of some kind, had already drawn level and then swerved brusquely into the verge and interposed itself between the taxi and the Saber.

Ouksa backed his car into the road but a man had already descended from the SUV and was walking around the front of his vehicle and into the road ahead of him, his hand extended. He could sense from this authoritative gesture alone that it was a policeman and the life went rushing out of him. Everything in him went slack and despondent and he let go of the wheel and slammed on the brakes and wild thoughts moved through him. A few miles away, his crippled wife woke up suddenly and opened her eyes and for a moment she had a premonition of disaster, a certainty that things would turn out badly for both of them.

Davuth had held up his hand and the frightened driver he could see behind the wheel had instinctively obeyed the silent command and stopped the car he was reversing. Davuth went up to him and showed him his badge and asked him what he was doing. It was in a cool, disdainful voice, the voice that stopped all comers, and there was no need to ramp up the pitch. He knew already that the driver had no ready explanation and he knew already what had happened because all the signs were there and logic dictated that Ouksa had done what he had done. He told him to park the car and come over with him to the Saber and he told him to do it slowly. Ouksa did as he was told and they walked together across the muddy open ground to the edge of the cane field. Davuth asked him his name, and all the rest.

“It’s a barang, isn’t it?” he said to him as they came to the ditch.

The policeman had a strong flashlight and shone it down as far as the white shirt and the paralyzed blue eyes. For Ouksa everything looked at once very different. The frogs sang right across the vast fields of cane and there was a gentleness in the rain.

“I didn’t know him,” he said quietly.

“You followed him here from Moonrise. I know all about him.”

“He threatened me — we pulled over.”

“No, no. Nothing like that. Shall we go have a look at what’s in your car?”

“You don’t believe me,” Ouksa said.

“There’s nothing to believe.”

Ouksa could do nothing but go with Davuth back to the car and show him everything that was under the seat. The policeman took the passports and the money and simply walked to his car and threw them in the back. He was feeling rather pleased with himself. It had been, after all, an extremely easy trap to load and spring and he had done no work but wait and observe. The driver was a simpleton. He told Ouksa to shut up and stay by the Saber and he went through the car himself until he found the clothes and heroin equipment and the dope itself. It was to the driver’s credit that he had left it behind. He took that as well and threw it into his own car and then returned to the shivering and terrified youth.

“Where are you from?”

Ouksa spilled everything about himself.

Davuth said, “You’re probably wondering what I’m going to do.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m not going to do anything. I’m going to give you a shovel and you’re going to take all their belongings and your bat into the sugarcane and bury them.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then you’re going to go home to your wife and shut up about everything you’ve done. It’s not difficult to understand, is it?”

Ouksa shook his head, and his misery was tinged with relief. Davuth could sense his insolence and his fear jostling in the atmosphere between them. It was a small struggle and he had to impose himself more fully.