Regan Wolfrom - After The Fires Went Out - Coyote

“I need a ride back to my truck,” I said.

“Okay.”

He took a step toward the hunting rifle.

“Don’t,” I said. “I’ll hold on to that for the time being.”

He didn’t argue.

We drove in the young man’s pickup truck back to 14th. Graham was pointing the shotgun out the driver’s side window of our grain truck, training it on the driver long before we were in range.

He kept the shotgun stuck on Jayden while the two of us climbed out.

“Says Pauline was with him,” I said. “Have you two met?”

“I don’t know,” Graham said.

“I’m sure we’ve met,” Jayden said. “It’s a pretty small town.” He turned to me. “Can I have my rifle back now?”

I started to unload the gun; you never pass it back loaded.

“We should bury her,” I said. “We can’t leave her out there in the parking lot.”

“It might not be safe,” Jayden said.

He didn’t sound distraught. All I picked up from him was that he wanted to get gone.

It didn’t sit well with me.

“There’s three of us,” I said. “We’ll be safe.”

“No…it’s okay. I know she’s gone. Burying her isn’t going to change anything.”

“It’s no trouble,” Graham said.

I could tell he was picking up on it, too.

“No…please…I just want to go home.”

“Yeah, okay,” I said. I waited a beat. “So the McIvors’ place was cleaned out. The Marchands took the stove…but I think we have a couple of bottles of homemade wine that your family left behind…and that grand piano.”

He nodded.

I wondered if the McIvors had actually left their grand piano behind. Or if they’d owned a grand piano. Or if “Jayden” knew anything about the McIvors.

“Where are you living now?” Graham asked.

“Does it matter?” Jayden said. “My girlfriend was just murdered in front of me. I just want to be left alone.”

“Right in front of you?” I asked.

He paused.

I think he knew where I was headed.

“Yeah,” he said. “Outside the motel.”

“And you left her to stumble off to the hospital on her own?”

“Just give me my gun back.”

“That’s not going to happen.” I looked up toward Graham. “Let’s grab the fuel. We’ll leave the truck here for now.”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Jayden said. “You’re going to steal from me?”

“We’re leaving your truck here, stupid. We’re taking the fuel to keep it from getting siphoned out on you.”

“What about all the stuff I’ve got in there?”

“Don’t worry…we’ll bring along anything of value.”

“There’s no way I’m going to agree to this.”

I sighed. “I don’t know you, kid. Neither does my friend here. So we take you to someone who does. If your story checks out, we’ll bring you and your crap back here.”

“You can’t do this.”

“Just shut up for now, okay? You’re not winning anybody over.”

He glanced over at the rifle. Then back at me.

I knew he’d make his move eventually.

I pulled out one of the sets of plasticuffs from my belt. I pushed Jayden against the pickup truck and cuffed his wrists behind his back.

I saw the scrapes on his arms and the blood on his knuckles.

“This isn’t right,” he said.

I emptied his pockets. No wallet, no ID. Just a pocket knife and a package of chewing gum. I handed them to Graham, who stuffed them into one of the pockets of his riot pants.

We siphoned the pickup’s diesel out into one of our gas cans, and once that was done we unloaded a few things from the truck that we figured had some value: a flashlight, a couple boxes of breakfast cereal, and a can of evaporated milk.

Jayden’s haul wasn’t much better than ours.

We found an empty cloth bag with a drawstring lying on the passenger side. It smelled faintly of sweat, but that wasn’t going to be my problem.

I threw the bag into the cab with the rest of his stuff.

Graham helped me push Jayden in.

I bent over and picked up the cloth bag.

“What the hell are you doing?” Jayden asked.

I pulled the bag over his head like a hood, tightening it around his neck with the drawstring.

“Can you breathe?” I asked.

“This is bullshit,” Jayden said. “You’ve got no right to do this to me.”

“You had no right to shoot my friend in the ass.”

“It wasn’t my ass,” Graham said, annoyed.

Jayden started to panic, kicking his legs. “Fuck!” he screamed.

“Calm down,” I said. “It’s a preventative measure.”

I wanted him to think I hadn’t made up my mind about him.

He was breathing hard and fast, but he stopped struggling. “Come on, guys…please let me go. Keep my rifle. Keep the fuel. Hell, I’ll just walk home from here.”

“No more talking,” I said. “Do us all a favour.”

He didn’t respond.

I climbed in beside him, shoving him toward the middle of the cab.

He told me to go fuck myself.

We drove through the rest of town in silence, past the buildings on the northeast side that didn’t get it as bad as the rest.

I stared out at what was left. It’s hard not to stare.

Some say the flames topped fifty meters in parts of Cochrane. I had been just north of town by the airport when they came; I’d never wasted any time measuring them.

We turned and headed south toward Highway 652 and home; I didn’t see any other movement.

“This isn’t going to end well,” Graham said as we passed the old rec centre on our way out of town.

“Can we talk about this later?”

He shook his head. “We can’t start taking prisoners, Baptiste. What are we going to do? Turn the chicken coop into a holding cell?”

“Just drop it.”

“Whatever. This day’s been a complete waste.”

“I found all kinds of drugs. That’s worth something.”

“Well I didn’t find a single car battery. Checked six cars. All had their batteries stripped out. The hoods looked like they were pried open or whatever, but after taking the battery they must’ve slammed it back shut. You can’t even tell the battery’s missing until you bust the hood open a second time.”

“I guess that’s the smart way to do it. No reason to leave the hood open and have the rest of the parts clog up with bird shit.”

“Yeah, but it makes it harder for us.”

“When did anyone make things easy for us?”

Graham nodded. “I guess someone’s built a pretty hefty battery bank of their own.”

“Anyone who wants to live past next summer will be building a battery bank.” I turned back to look at Jayden and his cloth hood. “You got a battery bank, Jayden?”

“Eat shit and die.”

I tried not to laugh.

“We’re not sunk,” I said to Graham. “It’s a big district. Even if someone picked the town clean doesn’t mean there aren’t more batteries around here. We just need to keep looking.”

Graham nodded. “That’ll take a while. And a whole lot of diesel. Unless you know of a scrapyard around here.”

I shook my head. “We’ll ask when we get home.”

I didn’t bother asking Jayden.

“We could probably find a few batteries on our way back,” Graham said.

“We can check, but let’s not take too long. We should really get you checked out. You know, since you got shot and all.”

“I’m fine.”

“I’ll believe that after you take off that vest.”

Graham smirked. “I’m not stripping for you, Baptiste. So quit asking.”

We started along Highway 652, eyeballing each driveway for cars. There could be cars locked away in garages or sitting out behind old sheds, but it would take at least fifteen minutes at each house, and there’s a good chance that anything sitting out of the way is old enough for the battery to be in pretty bad shape. I’m not an expert on any of this stuff, but luckily Graham knows a whole lot more than I do.