“What makes me nervous,” I said, “is the fact we weren’t armed back there, unless you count a chicken leg and a link sausage.”
“I was,” Tonto said.
“Yeah, but what about the rest of us?” I said.
“You had my best wishes,” Tonto said.
Leonard said, “Here’s my question. They’re so goddamn sneaky, how come they decided to come to us like that?”
“Way we were wandering around,” Jim Bob said, “my figure is they thought we knew they were following us. They didn’t know we didn’t know what the hell we were doing, so they thought we were giving them a hard time, being clever. And I think they thought they’d be all scary and we’d tell them what they wanted to know, then they’d run us off and they’d find the boy and the girl and all that money.”
“They obviously didn’t know me and Hap had our picture taken with a bear,” Leonard said. “They ain’t so tough. You see me give that bear a bad look, Hap?”
“No.”
“I haven’t been followed like that in a long time,” Tonto said. “Thought I was being careful, and I’m pretty damn careful, and still, they were following. That takes some chops. I mean, I haven’t never been followed before where I didn’t know.”
“You said it couldn’t happen,” I said.
“I was wrong,” Tonto said. “Those guys are good.”
“The big guy,” Jim Bob said, “he knows what he’s doing, all right.”
“You think they’ll take a run at us?” I said.
“I think they still hope we’ll lead them to something,” Jim Bob said.
“How did they get onto us so quick?” Leonard said.
“Someone somewhere told them something,” Tonto said. “You got to wonder who and when, but the thing that matters is, time comes they’ll stop fucking around and come for us. They’ll maybe think they can make us talk by pulling out fingernails or cutting off eyelids or some such thing, sticking a stick up our dicks.”
“That eyelid part,” I said. “I want to be up front and go on record right now. I’ll talk like you haven’t never heard anyone talk before if that’s done to me. I’ll be like a whole flock of canaries. They won’t have enough paper to write down what I got to say. And they start threatening my dick, I’ll start making stuff up to go along with it.”
We had tried to do it the easy way, which was drive over to the side of the lake where Hirem said the cabins were, but the easy way turned out hard, so we were going to cut to the chase and ask directions. We waited until the traffic at the store played out, then I went inside and found the owner behind a counter that contained whoopee cushions, fake dog shit, and all manner of redneck yuks. An older woman with gray hair and a face only a blind, prideless mother could love was behind the counter arranging a stack of little Texas flags on sticks in a large decorative coffee cup.
She said, “What can I do you for, honey?”
I gave her my winning smile, though I couldn’t remember the last time it had won me anything. “Me and some buddies, we were supposed to meet a friend here on the lake, but we’re kind of confused.”
“Lake’s out back of here. How confusing is that?”
I grinned like that was the best I had heard since my joke about the dog with the shot-up paw. Come to think of it, Leonard was right. That joke sucked.
“This buddy of ours said he was gonna meet us at a cabin on the east side of the lake—”
She pointed. “That’s east.”
“Yes, ma’am, we been over there. But the problem is, we can’t find where we’re supposed to meet him. He said a fellow named Bill Jordan had some cabins—”
“Bill Jordan. That old fart is in the ground, some three years now. He don’t own them anymore.”
“Oh, well, that puts a damper on things.”
“A crippled fella with a funny haircut owns them now, but he don’t rent out much. Got a pension.”
“I see. Well, I’m pretty sure my friend is meeting us there. That’s what he said anyway. He hasn’t been here in a while, so he probably rented from the other fella.”
“It’s kind of hard to get to actually,” she said. “Road is near washed out and it winds up in the pines. Good hunting up there, though. I know a fellow killed a wild hog there big enough to tussle with an elephant.”
“That a fact?”
“Of course not. Ain’t no hogs big as elephants. But it was big.”
“I see. So, you go around on the east side, but where do you turn? We were all over that place, and we couldn’t find what we were looking for.”
She got a piece of paper and a pencil and drew me a map, explaining as she did. Pushing it across the counter, she said, “Now, you got to watch all the ruts and potholes, and it’s narrow and there’s limbs all grown up around it. I was up there last year taking the crippled fella with a funny haircut some supplies. He calls up and I deliver. For a little extra fee, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Anyway, it’s like the goddamn Amazon up there.”
“Well, thanks.”
I started to go out. She said, “You know, you wanted to, there’s an easier way. It’ll take a little longer, but it’s still easier, and you’d have to get going before the storm comes up, ’cause one is coming.”
“So we were told.”
“You could rent one of my boats, take it straight across the lake, and you could just dock at the place.”
“How long would that take?”
“About an hour, maybe two if you get some tough wind and you ain’t no hand with a boat. You go now, you got to rent the boat for overnight. Or you can rent if for a few days if you’d rather be over there awhile.”
“How much is the boat?” I asked.
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In the van I explained about the map and the boat. I said, “Me and Leonard can take the boat across, and you guys can follow the map. Thing is, I think you don’t want to go over there right away, because you do, they might follow.”
“They won’t fool me again,” Tonto said.
“Just in case they do, however,” I said, “we could go across by boat, which they may not expect, see if we can find Hirem’s boy, the girl, and the money. It might even be a sneakier way to come up on them if they’re there. We can maybe call you when we get there and you can come around.”
“Checked my phone a little while ago,” Jim Bob said. “No signal out here.”
“All right,” I said. “Go do something that will give us two hours before you arrive, and we’ll take the boat across. We get there early we’ll hold our own until you show up. I think we can handle two kids and a pile of money.”
“But if that big fellow and his pals show up before we do,” Jim Bob said, “you might have your hands full.”
“They been full before,” Leonard said.
We spent some of our money on fishing poles and a bucket of minnows for show, a can of gas, bought a couple of sandwiches and a bag of vanilla wafers and a six-pack of Dr Pepper. The owner of the store, who told us her name was Annie, took us down to the boat and gave us instructions, and we set out.
It was really choppy and the boat rode high and dropped low. It was making my stomach queasy. The motor churned the water behind us and I pointed the bow due east, like Annie had suggested. There was a big stump in the middle of the lake she had directed us to, and when we got to that, she said we ought to start following a line of orange buoys and then those would go away and we had to hold due east until we saw a strip of land. She said it would be a lot farther away than we thought it was. Thing then was, when we got closer, we’d see a rise of pine trees and a dock out front of them, and there was a little trail that led up from the dock to the cabins.