Part Five
With clenched teeth, he inhaled against the fierce pain coursing through his nerves. It was the searing burn of his muscles pulled tautly around his abdomen, like harp strings tuned so tightly one pluck and they were sure to snap apart. Wyatt endured it though. He did this every night he could, pushing his body to its breaking point. He did this more than he slept. It wasn’t that he was obsessed with exercising or staying in shape. Wyatt cared little for the shape of his body. No, he worked his crying muscles, his tingling nerves, his boiling veins for a much deeper reason. In a world where so many around him seemed numb, Wyatt Douglass sought to feel alive.
Halfway through another sit up, a knock at the door made him jump. It broke his concentration, though he wasn’t keeping a count. Wyatt sat all the way up, his knees pressing against his bare chest. Beads of sweat glistened slightly across his neck and shoulders in the glow of the nearby television. A salesman in a blue T-shirt was pitching some useless product to the sleepless masses. Another man in a purple T-shirt nodded with rehearsed movement beside the first. Wyatt wasn’t listening, the volume was almost all the way down. It was just loud enough to make noise. That was all he had intended.
The door rattled again, a little louder this time and a little more urgently. Wyatt watched it for another moment before finally getting to his feet. He grabbed a shirt balled up on the corner of the bed as he padded calmly across the soft carpet. The dry threads of the thin shirt clung to the sparse layer of sweat on his torso as he slipped it on. With a casual, unassuming rhythm, Wyatt unlocked and pulled open the thick, hotel room door.
A fist of bitter cold air was the first thing to greet him. This hiss of heavy sleet cascading in dense sheets against everything beyond the balcony outside his door reminded Wyatt for the first time in hours a storm had moved into the area. He figured it’d probably start snowing soon, too. While the sound of the winter storm filled his ears, it was the wet, shivering figure in front of him that consumed his vision. It was the cashier from the restaurant. He wasn’t surprised to see her.
He started to open his mouth, to ask a question. But she was already answering. It was probably an obvious question anyway. She had known he would ask and she had known it would be the first question. “I have a friend that works here. He told me you were here. He gave me your room number.”
She stood there waiting for Wyatt to say something. He didn’t. He just stood there, one hand holding the door and the other hanging loosely at his side. His eyes even seemed frozen, a nearby light glowing dimly sparkled like a pair of faint, distant starts in the black voids of his pupils. He was watching her, trying to study her. Mostly frozen drops of water clung to the brim of a loose, nylon hood she clasped tightly with both hands. Her brown eyes were partly hidden under the shadow of her hood. Her hair seemed darker, especially the wet strands plastered to her clammy, white brow. She was still trembling, partly from the wicked cold and partly from his looming presence.
She swallowed nervously. The silence stretched between them until she broke it uncertainly. Despite her best effort, she could not keep her voice steady. “Sh...She wants to meet you. I...told her what you said. I told her about you and...and she...ww...wants to meet you.”
“Where?”
The cashier seemed startled at the sound of his voice. She straightened noticeably, taken aback by the mysterious man in the doorway. “Ss...Someplace else. Away ffr...from here.”
Wyatt blinked, then said evenly, “Okay.”
She didn’t move or step closer to the open doorway when Wyatt retreated into the shadows of the room beyond the bright ambiance of the dresser-mounted television. She waited patiently, still shivering against the cold while Wyatt quickly gathered his keys and wallet before pulling on his socks and shoes. The TV suddenly winked out, the heavy darkness leaping from the fringes of the hotel room to envelop the quiet space. Wyatt emerged a moment later, adjusting the collar of his jacket.
As the door she had struggled to convince herself to knock upon clicked loudly shut, the trembling young woman felt the agent’s arm lightly encircle her shoulders. “It’s okay,” he whispered against her ear. Wyatt glanced over their shoulders to catch sight of Gordon Parks watching them through a thin gap in the curtains of his own room. Wyatt knew he would be there, that he had probably been watching since she first came to Wyatt’s door.
Gordon’s eyebrows bounced playfully and he smiled with a devious, almost congratulatory look upon his youthful face. Wyatt only responded by turning his head forward, already guiding the young woman toward a nearby flight of stairs.
Her name was Eleanor and she only stopped shaking when she had taken a second, long drag off the cigarette held tightly between her pale lips. She didn’t speak except to laugh at herself. “It’s sad, I think. Ya’ know? I spend more money on these things...” She held up her cigarette, the smoldering butt glowing brightly in the darkness between them in the front of her car. She let it touch her lips again and drew another stream of the hot smoke into her mouth. Then she chuckled. “...I spend more money on them than I do for food. It’s the taxes, though. Everything’s expensive. You have to make your choices.”
Eleanor just drove after that. Wyatt just sat and watched the sleet fall through the beam of the headlights. He didn’t know where they were going. It didn’t matter. A few minutes later she parked the car against a curb in a neighborhood that looked like almost any other random neighborhood in the country. “We’re here,” she said, opening her door.
Wyatt followed her up a narrow, concrete walkway to a warped, wooden door. Most of the paint was missing and what was left looked like the cracked, parched floor of some Godforsaken desert. She opened the door quickly, the hinges creaking wildly, alerting anyone inside the small, two-story house. Eleanor crossed the threshold and stepped hurriedly aside, letting Wyatt walk calmly in behind her.
The agent quickly scanned the unfamiliar setting. A man with tangled, greasy black hair pushed up on one side, stumbled sleepily off a worn down sofa and onto his feet. He stood defensively, a weary animal ready to pounce at the slightest hint of a threat. “Is this him,” the stranger asked Eleanor. He looked to be in his early twenties. His voice was ragged, like the day’s worth of stubble on his face. He might have been fighting a cold on top of trying to keep watch with hardly any sleep. He blinked frantically, his body still orienting itself. He’d been caught off guard, dozing on the only job he had right now.
“Yeah,” Eleanor said, walking around Wyatt who was still in the entryway.
“Do you have a gun?”
Wyatt shifted his eyes from Eleanor to the younger stranger. He shook his head, saying evenly, “No.”
“Aren’t you some kind of government agent?” He clenched his fists, tensing the muscles in his arms to make them bulge.
Wyatt nodded, looking at him unimpressed. “Yes. But I still don’t have a gun.” Wyatt looked the stranger dead in the eyes, his gaze seemingly unchanged but for a fierceness the stranger obviously felt as he straightened his back. “Do I need one,” Wyatt asked.
Someone else answered the question. “No, you don’t.”
Wyatt looked up the narrow steps to a dark haired girl with cold, distant eyes. She was staring at him but spoke to the stranger at the couch. “You can stand down now, Jonah. He’s not going to hurt us.”
“What about his friends?” The boyish looking Jonah turned his beady eyes toward Eleanor. She had plopped down in a torn, leather easy chair. Her wet jacket was hanging off the soft back, icy droplets tapping against the thick, tan carpeting. “Were you followed?”
Eleanor shrugged her shoulders. She didn’t think to look out of people following them.
“I have no control over anyone else,” Wyatt said with little emotion in his voice. He was simply stating a fact.
The girl at the top of the steps had begun to descend the rickety planks one at a time. “I’m going to get some water. Would you like some water, Agent Douglass?”
She walked past him as she said his name. It surprised Wyatt but he didn’t let it show. Of course she knows my name, he thought to himself. She probably saw my business card.
“The kitchen is this way,” the girl said, already halfway across the living room. Wyatt proceeded to follow her, watching Jonah watch him with every step he took. “Don’t let Jonah get to you. He’s more scared than he looks,” the girl said with a slow sigh when Wyatt had rounded the corner leading into the kitchen.
Wyatt let himself smirk at her comment. “If you say so.”
“What did you want to talk to me about, Agent Douglass?” She didn’t face him as she spoke. The hinges on a cabinet door above a lemon yellow, linoleum counter top squeaked softly. She pulled two stout glasses from the front of an assortment. “You wanted to see me. Well, here I am.”
“I wanted to ask you about your parents,” Wyatt said. He took another step into the kitchen. “I wanted to ask you about what happened on that farm...your farm.”
Wyatt watched her fill the glasses with tap water. He saw her shoulders rise and sag with the heavy, pained breath she took at the mention of the farm. Finally, the girl turned to face the strange man who had once been only two things: first, an idea of something terrible, an avatar of an evil arm soaked in the blood of her family; and second, a name on a business card her best friend had put in her hand just a few hours earlier.
Wyatt took in the sight of the sun-kissed emerald of her eyes, the way they were almost like summer sunlight on a blade of grass. She had been crying, but that had been hours ago. Her eyelids were puffy and sagging. The whites of her eyes were hidden under the swollen and dry red veins. Yet, he still could take his gaze away from the color of her eyes. He thought of a blade of grass again.
“Here, unless you’re not going to drink it.”
Wyatt looked down at the proffered glass. He felt himself smirking again. A Texas flag was painted around the center. He looked at the glass in her other had, recognizing the Oklahoma colors between her fingers. He nodded appreciatively, taking the Texas glass into his fingers.
“Since I’ve got a man from the EPA here, is there anything I should know about this water?”
Wyatt lightly rubbed the painted lone star under his thumb. He lifted his eyes to hers. He shrugged his shoulders before touching the rim of the glass to his lips. Lukewarm water traced its way over his tongue and down his throat. He swallowed the small sip then answered, “I don’t know.”
Halfway through another sit up, a knock at the door made him jump. It broke his concentration, though he wasn’t keeping a count. Wyatt sat all the way up, his knees pressing against his bare chest. Beads of sweat glistened slightly across his neck and shoulders in the glow of the nearby television. A salesman in a blue T-shirt was pitching some useless product to the sleepless masses. Another man in a purple T-shirt nodded with rehearsed movement beside the first. Wyatt wasn’t listening, the volume was almost all the way down. It was just loud enough to make noise. That was all he had intended.
The door rattled again, a little louder this time and a little more urgently. Wyatt watched it for another moment before finally getting to his feet. He grabbed a shirt balled up on the corner of the bed as he padded calmly across the soft carpet. The dry threads of the thin shirt clung to the sparse layer of sweat on his torso as he slipped it on. With a casual, unassuming rhythm, Wyatt unlocked and pulled open the thick, hotel room door.
A fist of bitter cold air was the first thing to greet him. This hiss of heavy sleet cascading in dense sheets against everything beyond the balcony outside his door reminded Wyatt for the first time in hours a storm had moved into the area. He figured it’d probably start snowing soon, too. While the sound of the winter storm filled his ears, it was the wet, shivering figure in front of him that consumed his vision. It was the cashier from the restaurant. He wasn’t surprised to see her.
He started to open his mouth, to ask a question. But she was already answering. It was probably an obvious question anyway. She had known he would ask and she had known it would be the first question. “I have a friend that works here. He told me you were here. He gave me your room number.”
She stood there waiting for Wyatt to say something. He didn’t. He just stood there, one hand holding the door and the other hanging loosely at his side. His eyes even seemed frozen, a nearby light glowing dimly sparkled like a pair of faint, distant starts in the black voids of his pupils. He was watching her, trying to study her. Mostly frozen drops of water clung to the brim of a loose, nylon hood she clasped tightly with both hands. Her brown eyes were partly hidden under the shadow of her hood. Her hair seemed darker, especially the wet strands plastered to her clammy, white brow. She was still trembling, partly from the wicked cold and partly from his looming presence.
She swallowed nervously. The silence stretched between them until she broke it uncertainly. Despite her best effort, she could not keep her voice steady. “Sh...She wants to meet you. I...told her what you said. I told her about you and...and she...ww...wants to meet you.”
“Where?”
The cashier seemed startled at the sound of his voice. She straightened noticeably, taken aback by the mysterious man in the doorway. “Ss...Someplace else. Away ffr...from here.”
Wyatt blinked, then said evenly, “Okay.”
She didn’t move or step closer to the open doorway when Wyatt retreated into the shadows of the room beyond the bright ambiance of the dresser-mounted television. She waited patiently, still shivering against the cold while Wyatt quickly gathered his keys and wallet before pulling on his socks and shoes. The TV suddenly winked out, the heavy darkness leaping from the fringes of the hotel room to envelop the quiet space. Wyatt emerged a moment later, adjusting the collar of his jacket.
As the door she had struggled to convince herself to knock upon clicked loudly shut, the trembling young woman felt the agent’s arm lightly encircle her shoulders. “It’s okay,” he whispered against her ear. Wyatt glanced over their shoulders to catch sight of Gordon Parks watching them through a thin gap in the curtains of his own room. Wyatt knew he would be there, that he had probably been watching since she first came to Wyatt’s door.
Gordon’s eyebrows bounced playfully and he smiled with a devious, almost congratulatory look upon his youthful face. Wyatt only responded by turning his head forward, already guiding the young woman toward a nearby flight of stairs.
Her name was Eleanor and she only stopped shaking when she had taken a second, long drag off the cigarette held tightly between her pale lips. She didn’t speak except to laugh at herself. “It’s sad, I think. Ya’ know? I spend more money on these things...” She held up her cigarette, the smoldering butt glowing brightly in the darkness between them in the front of her car. She let it touch her lips again and drew another stream of the hot smoke into her mouth. Then she chuckled. “...I spend more money on them than I do for food. It’s the taxes, though. Everything’s expensive. You have to make your choices.”
Eleanor just drove after that. Wyatt just sat and watched the sleet fall through the beam of the headlights. He didn’t know where they were going. It didn’t matter. A few minutes later she parked the car against a curb in a neighborhood that looked like almost any other random neighborhood in the country. “We’re here,” she said, opening her door.
Wyatt followed her up a narrow, concrete walkway to a warped, wooden door. Most of the paint was missing and what was left looked like the cracked, parched floor of some Godforsaken desert. She opened the door quickly, the hinges creaking wildly, alerting anyone inside the small, two-story house. Eleanor crossed the threshold and stepped hurriedly aside, letting Wyatt walk calmly in behind her.
The agent quickly scanned the unfamiliar setting. A man with tangled, greasy black hair pushed up on one side, stumbled sleepily off a worn down sofa and onto his feet. He stood defensively, a weary animal ready to pounce at the slightest hint of a threat. “Is this him,” the stranger asked Eleanor. He looked to be in his early twenties. His voice was ragged, like the day’s worth of stubble on his face. He might have been fighting a cold on top of trying to keep watch with hardly any sleep. He blinked frantically, his body still orienting itself. He’d been caught off guard, dozing on the only job he had right now.
“Yeah,” Eleanor said, walking around Wyatt who was still in the entryway.
“Do you have a gun?”
Wyatt shifted his eyes from Eleanor to the younger stranger. He shook his head, saying evenly, “No.”
“Aren’t you some kind of government agent?” He clenched his fists, tensing the muscles in his arms to make them bulge.
Wyatt nodded, looking at him unimpressed. “Yes. But I still don’t have a gun.” Wyatt looked the stranger dead in the eyes, his gaze seemingly unchanged but for a fierceness the stranger obviously felt as he straightened his back. “Do I need one,” Wyatt asked.
Someone else answered the question. “No, you don’t.”
Wyatt looked up the narrow steps to a dark haired girl with cold, distant eyes. She was staring at him but spoke to the stranger at the couch. “You can stand down now, Jonah. He’s not going to hurt us.”
“What about his friends?” The boyish looking Jonah turned his beady eyes toward Eleanor. She had plopped down in a torn, leather easy chair. Her wet jacket was hanging off the soft back, icy droplets tapping against the thick, tan carpeting. “Were you followed?”
Eleanor shrugged her shoulders. She didn’t think to look out of people following them.
“I have no control over anyone else,” Wyatt said with little emotion in his voice. He was simply stating a fact.
The girl at the top of the steps had begun to descend the rickety planks one at a time. “I’m going to get some water. Would you like some water, Agent Douglass?”
She walked past him as she said his name. It surprised Wyatt but he didn’t let it show. Of course she knows my name, he thought to himself. She probably saw my business card.
“The kitchen is this way,” the girl said, already halfway across the living room. Wyatt proceeded to follow her, watching Jonah watch him with every step he took. “Don’t let Jonah get to you. He’s more scared than he looks,” the girl said with a slow sigh when Wyatt had rounded the corner leading into the kitchen.
Wyatt let himself smirk at her comment. “If you say so.”
“What did you want to talk to me about, Agent Douglass?” She didn’t face him as she spoke. The hinges on a cabinet door above a lemon yellow, linoleum counter top squeaked softly. She pulled two stout glasses from the front of an assortment. “You wanted to see me. Well, here I am.”
“I wanted to ask you about your parents,” Wyatt said. He took another step into the kitchen. “I wanted to ask you about what happened on that farm...your farm.”
Wyatt watched her fill the glasses with tap water. He saw her shoulders rise and sag with the heavy, pained breath she took at the mention of the farm. Finally, the girl turned to face the strange man who had once been only two things: first, an idea of something terrible, an avatar of an evil arm soaked in the blood of her family; and second, a name on a business card her best friend had put in her hand just a few hours earlier.
Wyatt took in the sight of the sun-kissed emerald of her eyes, the way they were almost like summer sunlight on a blade of grass. She had been crying, but that had been hours ago. Her eyelids were puffy and sagging. The whites of her eyes were hidden under the swollen and dry red veins. Yet, he still could take his gaze away from the color of her eyes. He thought of a blade of grass again.
“Here, unless you’re not going to drink it.”
Wyatt looked down at the proffered glass. He felt himself smirking again. A Texas flag was painted around the center. He looked at the glass in her other had, recognizing the Oklahoma colors between her fingers. He nodded appreciatively, taking the Texas glass into his fingers.
“Since I’ve got a man from the EPA here, is there anything I should know about this water?”
Wyatt lightly rubbed the painted lone star under his thumb. He lifted his eyes to hers. He shrugged his shoulders before touching the rim of the glass to his lips. Lukewarm water traced its way over his tongue and down his throat. He swallowed the small sip then answered, “I don’t know.”
The girl snickered once, shaking her head. “Funny.”
“I’m not what you think I am. I’m not a scientist. I don’t investigate pollutants...just polluters.”
The brief glimpse of something barely resembling a smile had completely vanished from her face. “Is that what your friends were doing at my father’s farm? Investigating?”
Wyatt looked down at the glass in his hands again. He was cradling it like some kind of precious element, like it were a lifeline or an anchor he absolutely could no longer let go. The thumb of his right hand was still caressing the roughly painted surface of the Texas banner. “I don’t know what happened,” Wyatt said. “That’s why I’m here. I want to know what you know.
Suddenly, there was a knock on the wall behind Wyatt. He turned, his back straightening. Every muscle in his body tightened at once. Suddenly, he was sympathizing with Jonah at his entrance into the house. It was Jonah’s head that poked around the corner. He glanced at Wyatt then quickly looked past him. “Somebody’s here. Well, they’re across the street.”
“What? Who,” the girl asked. “Do you know who it is?
“No. It’s a nice car though. They came up the street, did a U-turn, and then parked up near old Mrs. Handers’ house.” Jonah stepped further into view. “They’ve been there for like...a few minutes.”
“Don’t be too detailed,” Eleanor shouted from the living room.
“I’m doing my best!” Jonah looked at the pair in front of him. “I couldn’t think of a number.”
“I think I know who it is,” Wyatt said. “Idiot,” he mumbled under his breath, turning around to gently place the Texas glass on the linoleum counter top. He was thinking of the idiot in the car. It could only be the young, brown-nosing Gordon Parks.
Wyatt turned to look at the girl. “We need to go. We still need to talk. Is there a back door we can use?”
Jonah and the girl tilted their heads slightly, directing attention toward the locked door just a few feet to their right.
“Ahh,” Wyatt said. “Good.”
Jonah leaned close to the girl. “He’s not supposed to be some kind of detective, is he?”
She shrugged her shoulders. It was the best sign of hope she had received from the stranger so far.
“Get your stuff,” Wyatt said. There was authority in his voice. He was quickly trying to move past an obviously embarrassing moment. “We need to go before he gets impatient.”
“Who,” Jonah asked as the girl began to turn and walk out of the kitchen. Wyatt stayed a few steps behind her. Jonah grabbed his arm. “Is he going to kills us?”
Wyatt looked at the soft fingers gripping his biceps. “Worse.” He looked up into the puppy-dog eyes of the younger man. “He’s going to tattle on us.”
“I’m not what you think I am. I’m not a scientist. I don’t investigate pollutants...just polluters.”
The brief glimpse of something barely resembling a smile had completely vanished from her face. “Is that what your friends were doing at my father’s farm? Investigating?”
Wyatt looked down at the glass in his hands again. He was cradling it like some kind of precious element, like it were a lifeline or an anchor he absolutely could no longer let go. The thumb of his right hand was still caressing the roughly painted surface of the Texas banner. “I don’t know what happened,” Wyatt said. “That’s why I’m here. I want to know what you know.
Suddenly, there was a knock on the wall behind Wyatt. He turned, his back straightening. Every muscle in his body tightened at once. Suddenly, he was sympathizing with Jonah at his entrance into the house. It was Jonah’s head that poked around the corner. He glanced at Wyatt then quickly looked past him. “Somebody’s here. Well, they’re across the street.”
“What? Who,” the girl asked. “Do you know who it is?
“No. It’s a nice car though. They came up the street, did a U-turn, and then parked up near old Mrs. Handers’ house.” Jonah stepped further into view. “They’ve been there for like...a few minutes.”
“Don’t be too detailed,” Eleanor shouted from the living room.
“I’m doing my best!” Jonah looked at the pair in front of him. “I couldn’t think of a number.”
“I think I know who it is,” Wyatt said. “Idiot,” he mumbled under his breath, turning around to gently place the Texas glass on the linoleum counter top. He was thinking of the idiot in the car. It could only be the young, brown-nosing Gordon Parks.
Wyatt turned to look at the girl. “We need to go. We still need to talk. Is there a back door we can use?”
Jonah and the girl tilted their heads slightly, directing attention toward the locked door just a few feet to their right.
“Ahh,” Wyatt said. “Good.”
Jonah leaned close to the girl. “He’s not supposed to be some kind of detective, is he?”
She shrugged her shoulders. It was the best sign of hope she had received from the stranger so far.
“Get your stuff,” Wyatt said. There was authority in his voice. He was quickly trying to move past an obviously embarrassing moment. “We need to go before he gets impatient.”
“Who,” Jonah asked as the girl began to turn and walk out of the kitchen. Wyatt stayed a few steps behind her. Jonah grabbed his arm. “Is he going to kills us?”
Wyatt looked at the soft fingers gripping his biceps. “Worse.” He looked up into the puppy-dog eyes of the younger man. “He’s going to tattle on us.”
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