The Trackers by Charles Frazier

Author:Charles Frazier [Frazier, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2023-03-14T12:00:00+00:00

A BLACK NIGHT, MOONLESS STILL AND HALF THE sky clouded. Limping and wiping blood from my ear, I walked down the road beside the dark river trying to feel directions, as if the rotation of the planet, the great east-to-west sweep, ought to be discernible if you made yourself tingling sensitive enough. The night pressed down so dark you could hardly tell where the road was sometimes, except that if you walked in leaves and needles more than a few steps, you were probably off the track. Insects and reptiles roared all around. Shortly, the moon April had predicted, not quite last quarter, began rising as if through a layer of gauze, milky and vague behind the ghost moss. Get east-west sorted out, and north-south comes easy, so wherever I was heading was mostly west.

Off in the jungle, something sounded like dogs crunching chicken bones. The soggy warm air smelled like soured laundry and acted like a lens magnifying the moon beyond reasonable proportions. Humidity thickened the longer I walked, as if the air was in process of becoming gelatin. An enormous pale owl sat motionless on a fence post except for swiveling its head very slowly to watch my passage.

I walked along the sand road thinking about fields of magnetism or gravity dragging at us and shoving at us, blind forces we like to believe have meaning and sometimes call fate or destiny, like poker players believing the random deal of cards has personal meaning, a judgment of the player’s worth, a manifestation of a god called Luck. But the longer I stumbled through the dark, the angrier I became with Long for being unwilling to do his own dirty work, though neither of us had thought of this trip as dirty work when we planned it. Clearly, though, I’d been naive to believe as firmly as Long that the golden light of his influence protected me.

SOMETIME BEFORE DAWN, NOT A shimmer of light to the east, a rooster crowed, more a yawn than a shrill. A car came up from behind, and I eased over to the edge between sand and weeds to let it pass, but it hovered there, two yellow beams of light. Finally it pulled up alongside and stopped, a squad car. The uniformed man inside sat silently and studied me. He was younger even than the sheriff. Finally he said, I don’t know you, and that makes me suspicious. I know everybody around here.

—I’ve been to see the Orsons, and my ride went off without me.

—And you know the Orsons how?

—I didn’t know them. I was looking for their son Jake.

The deputy pondered and finally said, Get what you were looking for?

—Not really. They say they haven’t seen him in a while.

—Just a tip, if you do find him, you might wish you hadn’t.

—Why’s that?

—Might not be what you’re bargaining for. Anyway, he’s not here. And I make a point of knowing when that mean little bastard’s around.

He drove away without offering me a ride.

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.