Strike Zone by Richard Curtis

Author:Richard Curtis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2014-05-10T23:29:25+00:00

Chapter VIII

I rose before dawn next morning after a sleepless night in a stuffy room on the top floor of the Hackberry Arms. My ribs and jaw throbbed from Buddy Gilpin’s artful application of the oar, and I’d tossed in clammy sheets for hours. In spite of my bone-weariness, my mind wouldn’t let me find refuge in slumber. I sought a glimmer of light beneath the bushel of stories people had been handing me the last couple of days. Pinky Ryan said one thing, Sam Metcalf another, and Buddy Gilpin still another. Now suspicion shifted to Ruby Swanson, owner of the Omaha Honchos, but if the pattern held, he’d have a story just as good as the others. I didn’t know whether to believe all of them, some of them, or none of them.

I paid my bill and took off without a shave or a cup of coffee, which means I was desperate to leave. I had to admit the marshland at that hour, wreathed in vapor, took on an eerie loveliness. An occasional chênière with its ghostly, moss-festooned oaks offered oasis-like solidity in a world that seemed composed of floating clods of earth.

I had to conclude that Thomas Jefferson must have been a little deranged when he bought the Louisiana Territory.

I crossed the Sabine back into Orange, Texas, filling my lungs with fresh cool air spiced with salt borne off the Gulf of Mexico by a southerly breeze. I stopped for breakfast at a gleaming diner and ducked into the men’s room with my razor for a shave while waiting for my order. Three cups of coffee, huevos rancheros, sausages, and grits put me back among the living.

I’d figured to proceed to Lubbock, where Ruby Swanson’s Honchos had their camp, but a phone call ascertained that the Honchos were in Tucson for an exhibition game with the San Francisco Giants and weren’t due back till tomorrow morning. That was just as well, since Lubbock was way to hell and gone in the northwest corner of the state, and there were a couple of stops I wanted to make nearer to where I was. For one thing, there was the State Prison at Bristow where I had to go see this Lonnie Raintree as a favor to my buddy Roy. From there I figured to go to Fort Worth to see my mom, my ex-wife, and our daughter. I could be in Fort Worth tonight and Lubbock tomorrow without skipping a beat.

I went to the phone and lined up this itinerary. Then I called Fiona.

The memory of our night together had by no means been tarnished by subsequent events. If anything, the lonesomeness of my chase across the comfortless desolation of southwest Louisiana had only vivified it. It was something warm to cling to as I became more and more deeply mired in the futility of my mission.

Part of what had kept me tossing all night was a growing sense of concern for her. She’d said she had a notion

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.