Three Minute Hero by Craig Terlson

Author:Craig Terlson
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Ethelbert House
Published: 2023-10-26T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

Rainstorms show up out of nowhere on the prairie, and then the clouds pack up like a traveling circus, leaving so fast you wondered if they were here at all. The air had gone from cool and refreshing, drying my soaked clothes, to arrows of heat that cooked the back of my neck as I walked with Dark Suit through the field.

I was pretty sure he saw the flash of confusion on my face when he said the name Delilah. I tried to cover it saying, Yeah, well let’s go see how her and Larry are doing. I got him to his feet. He grumbled and moaned, but I nudged him forward. He now walked a few steps ahead of me.

My head felt like I’d climbed in a washing machine during the spin cycle. Delilah? That was who Harold had come looking for—according to Alex the Springs manager, anyway. So the goons were after Delilah and mistook Theresa for her? Running through the field—even with the dark sky and the rain they should have seen that Theresa wasn’t her. Unless they didn’t know what this Delilah looked like. Could be they were sent to retrieve a woman driving a truck going East on Highway 37—I think that’s what the sign said. Some guy named Stiltson had sent them.

Wait. Unless Theresa was Delilah. Shit. She’d acted funny when I said the name.

“Hey, what’s your name?”

“Johnson,” Dark Suit said.

“I’m sure it is. Well, Mr. Johnson, how did you know we’d be driving out here?”

He didn’t say anything. He stumbled on the ground, yelped, and regained his balance.

“I have no problems shooting someone in the back,” I said.

“Stiltson described the truck. He said you’d be driving north and east away from Hamel.”

“This guy sent you after a truck? That’s not much to go on.”

“He told us what she looked like.”

“Delilah.”

“Yeah, her.”

We reached the edge of the yard. A cousin of the cow out in the field mooed from the barn. A pair of chickens skittered across the ground. They were in a helluva hurry to get somewhere, or running from Old MacDonald with an axe. I walked a circle in the yard, telling Johnson to stay put. Except for the animals, there was no one around. I expected someone to come from the house and ask me what the hell we were doing, but it was quiet as a church. The only vehicle was a small yellow tractor parked next to the barn.

I rapped on the door of the house. It was an old story-and-a-half job, with a row of square windows on the main level, a wider window sat under the peaked dormer, and a clapboard porch. No one came. I twisted the doorknob, locked, then looked back at Johnson who was standing in the yard like the last kid picked for the baseball game. The porch wrapped around the house. I followed it, peering in a couple of windows. Another road snaked out to the highway. It was more dirt than gravel, with a set of tracks that looked fresh in the rain.

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