Philipp Meyer - American Rust

Listen to you, he thought. Trying to distract from the question. Which is whether you ought to be defending Billy Poe. Get out of this truck and go down there and discover that jacket. You should have already arrested him. At least that was one take on it — Even Keel's. Even Keel had also made him buy a cabin on top of a mountain that no woman in her right mind would ever consider living in. Even Keel was a coward. Harris decided he would sit there. He would watch and see what happened. He would see which part of him turned out to be right.

— —

Near sundown, they spotted movement at the far edge of the meadow near the train tracks.

“Now there's two people who don't want to get seen,” said Ho.

Harris got an even worse feeling. He lifted his binoculars. He couldn't make out the faces on either of the two people in the meadow but he could guess from the size and the strange bouncing walk. Coming back to get his jacket. A tightness was growing in his chest. As the two got closer, he could see clearly that it was Billy Poe and one of his friends, the short kid whose sister had gotten all those scholarships. He thought about Grace. He felt sick to his stomach.

“You okay?” said Ho.

Harris nodded.

Ho was looking through his own binoculars, an expensive Zeiss model.

“That who I think it is?”

“Believe so.”

“You want me to go down there?”

“Just hold on.”

It was quiet for a few seconds, then Ho said: “You better make sure this doesn't burn you, Chief. The whole town knows you put in a good word for him last time. You've said yourself—”

“Do me the favor.”

“You know all I'm saying, Chief. This ain't the old days.”

Harris turned on the light bar for a few seconds to let the two in the field know they should come up. They both froze.

“They're gonna run for it.”

“That kid's sister is at Harvard. He isn't running anywhere.”

As predicted, the two began to walk glumly up the hill toward the Explorer.

“You ought to take a look through these glasses, Chief. I can see every last goddamn zit on their faces.”

“Later,” said Harris.

But it was a clear enough picture. Billy Poe and some friends had come out here to drink, maybe score some meth, and things had gone bad. Meaning Billy Poe had beaten one of them to death, then panicked and took off, and was now coming back to clean up his mess. The saddest part being he'd gotten this other kid mixed up in it. Harris wondered if there was a way to keep that one in the clear. People like him still had a chance.

It was not Billy Poe he really worried about. He'd known for years where the boy would end up. He'd bent over backwards, he had put his own name on the line, knowing the entire time what would happen. By a certain age, people had their own trajectory. The best you could do was try to nudge them into a different course, though for the most part, it was like trying to catch a body falling from a skyscraper. Billy Poe's trajectory had been clear very early; it wasn't Billy Poe he was worried about. It was Grace and what this would do to her.

Ho said: “You know I always hated that prick Cecil Small, but it's bad timing with the new DA. Cecil Small might have been willing to float a break.”

“I never said a thing about it.”

“I know you're worried about your nephew there.”

“He ain't my nephew.”

Ho shrugged. They watched the boys walk up the hill. Young men, Harris corrected himself Billy Poe was twenty- one. Somehow that seemed impossible. When he'd first met Grace, her son was five years old.

“Here they come,” said Ho. “I'll put on my mean face.”

Looking up from where he and Poe had just emerged from the brush at the edge of the field, he saw Harris's truck. But the same instant he wondered if they might be able to make it back into the trees, the lights at the top of the truck came on. Poe began walking through the waist-high grass, toward Harris and toward the machine shop. Isaac followed in a daze.

They were across the field and near the muddy torn- up ground by the machine shop when Poe slowed to let him catch up. “We're good,” he said quietly. “He knows where I live and if he found my jacket he wouldn't still be here.”

“You think he'll see us being here as just a big coincidence,” said Isaac.

Poe nodded.

Isaac was about to discuss it further but then he wondered if Harris could somehow hear them, even from up there. Poe began to walk more quickly as they passed the building where the Swede was lying. Not anymore, he thought. The Swede is already gone. The coroner's probably already been here, the DA, everyone. Half the town, judging by the tire tracks. What's- her- name, coroner's daughter, Dawn Wodzinski. Due to inherit the family business. Her father being both county coroner and funeral home director. No, knowing her is not going to help you. The DA is that new guy. What's- his- name.

Meanwhile see how fast Poe is walking. Relieved he doesn't have to look at what he did. Because of him a person is dead but he'll forget that detail soon enough. He'll remember he's innocent. He'll remember it was your choice to do what you did. Meanwhile it was him who wanted that fight, didn't care what the cost was because the cost was not to him — it was to you and the Swede and he will not take any of that off you. Know him well enough for that.

They made their way up the fireroad through the trees, climbing the hill under a dark gray sky Their pants legs were soaked and stuck with burrs and grass seed and Poe climbed with long strides, staring only at the ground in front of his feet. Isaac nearly had to jog to keep pace, it was humiliating and he was angry at Poe for that as well. There was the sharp odor of crushed weeds and skunk sumac, a more pleasant smell of damp soil. They passed a dug- out mudhole where a vehicle had gotten stuck, clods of dirt sprayed up the sides of the trees. He could feel his face getting hotter and he tried to calm down. Sacrificed on the altar to others, presenting Isaac English. His own fault. Not the Swede you traded for Poe — traded yourself. You aren't going to California. Aren't going anywhere.

They reached the top of the hill and Harris stepped down nimbly to meet them. He didn't look particularly threatening — around fifty, skinny legs and nearly bald, hair close- cropped around the sides and back of his head. Then a much younger cop got out of the truck, a barrel- chested Asian man only five or six years older than Isaac. He was wearing sunglasses despite the encroaching darkness, holding an M4 carbine at low ready. Isaac only vaguely recognized him. He was not one of the cops everyone knew.

“Y'all stay cool,” said the second officer.

Harris appeared to grin despite himself. He gave a signal and the man lowered his rifle.

“That Billy Poe?” said Harris.

“Yessir.”

“Come here a lot, do you?”

“No sir,” said Poe. “First time.”

Harris looked at Poe for a long time, then at Isaac.

“Alright,” he said. “First time y'all have been here.”

The other cop smirked and shook his head. In addition to his assault rifle, which had such a short barrel it might have been a submachine gun, he had a load- bearing vest with several extra magazines for the rifle, a baton, some other equipment Isaac didn't recognize. He could have been a military contractor just out of Iraq. Harris, by comparison, had only his pistol, handcuffs, and a small police flashlight.

“Interesting place to spend the night,” the officer said.

“Sure is. Now Billy, you don't have any strange proclivities, do you, coming out here at dark with another young man?”

“No sir. Not at all sir.”