He and Maggot were passing a handle of gin between the front and back seat, another last-minute save from Hammer’s truck. If he’d started it that morning, I was impressed to see Hammer conscious. Maggot was putting a good hurt on the remainder. I mostly passed, on principles. Being the driver. Best to keep the blood alcohol in the mid to upper teens.
I don’t think they saw the dark clouds up ahead, in any full sense. I was steering us into combat. Hammer’s case was clear-cut. Fast Forward stole his woman, and disrespected the goods. And he’d not even seen Emmy after Atlanta, he had no real idea of the damage. I’d go to my grave with the picture in my head of those half-naked girls on their filthy mattress, like somebody’s thrown-away Barbie dolls. Not even human. Whatever happened down there had knocked the shine off Emmy, maybe forever. Her and June both. Emmy was never my girl, I was not the avenger here, but even still I was getting an itch in my fist, for a certain cocksure jaw.
That itch grew by the mile. The woods got deep and the road narrowed and I was gearing down and accelerating both at once, to take the steep uphill snake of curves in this rutted gravel track. Driving took more concentration than I had, but my brain was still bouncing around. Fast Forward at Creaky Farm. Squad inspections. That bully getting up in the faces of Tommy and Swap-Out till they nearly pissed themselves. And me acting like I didn’t see. He was never anything but a total rectum to either one of them, and Tommy was so tenderhearted, feeling it all. Taking the stick for our so-called protector, every time. That self-centered prick. Making me his bitch. The goodness of Tommy, even after all that, the friend he was to me now. With any luck we wouldn’t find Fast Forward. Because if we did, there would be blood.
We weren’t dressed for any category of damn Sunday frolic in this pounding rain, and were cursing each other out from the time we got out of the car. I told Hammer to leave the rifle, on the argument of it getting rain damaged, in actual fact more concerned over the homicide aspects. But Hammer was not parting from his everloving Marlin 336C. I pressed the point, and he yelled at me that it was waxed and blued and what the hell did I think the pioneers did whenever it fucking rained? Maggot took a couple steps backward, to see our golden retriever boy go all fierce like that. Shit. Hammer on crank, tiger in the tank.
It turned out we hadn’t parked in the best place. We walked maybe a mile up a dirt road before we even got to the trail for Devil’s Bathtub. I was debating between this being a flirtation with disaster or just an ignorant goose chase leading to three baked guys getting sopping wet. And then we saw the Lariat. Parked at a steep tilt up a bank, nobody’s idea of a parking spot, as close to the start of a trail as a vehicle could get. None of us said a word.
Hammer led the way on the trail, and I went last, watching the rifle barrel nodding over Hammer’s shoulder and the ponytail straggling down Maggot’s back. （His haircutter Martha was long gone.） Suddenly it felt some high percentage of insane to be out here in the woods on this half-cooked Fast Forward bear hunt. I walked back in my brain to where the day turned: Rose Dartell. Pizza delivery to East Jesus freaking Woodway? It had to be a setup. She always knew where Fast Forward was, and it was easy enough to know where I was. It looked purposeful, Fast Forward using his lackey Rose to lure me to this place he knew I never wanted to be. To what purpose, was the question. Hammer and his Marlin 336C getting thrown into the mix, that was nobody’s plan. We needed to turn around.
But Hammer was walking fast, less drunk than I thought, or a lot more cranked. My knee was hurting like the devil. Messed-up bones get aggravated by unsettled weather and walking on uneven ground. Jackpot. We came to a creek with the trail running straight through it. No way was I wading through rushing water over slick rocks on my wobbly legs. I yelled at the guys that I couldn’t do this. Hammer laughed and splashed right in and yelled back that this was crossing number one, there were ten more. Maybe thirteen. “Make like you’ve got the ball and run for the end zone, star man,” he yelled, and I thought: He has been pissed at me for years, and holding it in. Pissed at the whole lot of us bad boys and adult-avoiders that let him do the hard part.
I pushed myself into the water.
The second crossing was faster and deeper than the first, and on from there it went. Maggot said he’d never seen it like this before. Normally it was a trickle, this was a flash flood. I had to go on hands and knees at times, feeling for footholds in the rushing water, everything slick and wobbly under there and me in my soaked, heavy jeans. The bones inside my knee were grinding like a bad transmission. Hammer and Maggot waded ahead of me with sturdy strides, or they balanced and hopped from rock to rock, and it choked me up to watch them use their bodies that way, without a thought. Something I’d probably lost for good.