Heroes by David Hagberg (books under 200 pages .TXT) 📕

told Schey his entire life story, all the tense way through Santa Fe and across the desert through the night.

Now he seemed tired. Schey lit a cigarette and held it out.

“Care for a smoke, Burt?”

Shamus glanced over. He shook his head. “Nope. I got heartburn that won’t quit. My eyes feel like someone’s poured hot sand in ‘em, and I gotta piss like a racehorse. Don’t need a fag.”

Schey had to laugh. “How about if I drive for a while, and you catch some sleep?”

“You mean it?” Shamus asked. “You wouldn’t mind?”

“Pull over, Burt. You’re givin’ me the creeps the way you’ve been driving.” It was hard for Schey to speak so colloquially. But even as hard as he tried, he could see that Shamus, who had a flat mid western accent, would look at him oddly every now and then.

Shamus slowed the car down and pulled over to the side of the road. He cut the lights, then got out, careful not to slam the door so as not to wake Eva, and he walked around to the passenger side where he urinated in the ditch.

Schey scooted over to the driver’s side, and for just a moment he considered driving off without the man. But he decided against it. Sooner or later a car or a truck would come by. Shamus would flag it down and they would get to a police station, probably down in Trinidad, on the Colorado side of the pass. From there it would be a matter of telephones and radios that no car could outrun.

Shamus got back in the car, Schey flipped the headlights on and pulled out onto the highway.

“Wake me up if you feel yourself getting’ sleepy,” the fat man warned, lying back, his head against the doorpost.

“Sure thing, Burt,” Schey said.

Shamus was sound asleep within a few minutes.

They crossed over the pass, some snow still in the higher mountains around them, and then they descended onto the Colorado high plains, the rolling hills like high waves on the ocean.

They went through the town of Trinidad, then Ludlow and Aguilar—all very small, all predominantly Mexican—the well maintained highway rising and falling through the grasslands that paralleled the awesome wall of the Rockies close in to the west.

By now the FBI would have figured that something had gone wrong at the ranch. Romero was there to tell them he had seen the FBI agent with the large hat driving off the ranch.

The agent even waved. But they would not be fooled by that for very long.

By now the search would have already spread outward from the ranch. North along Highway 44 to Cuba and Counselor, of course, and then back to U.S. 85 up to Santa Fe and down to Albuquerque.

If they hadn’t found the Chevy by now, they would very soon.

Certainly, by morning, someone at the railway station would notice that the gray car with out-of-state plates had been there all night. They’d call the police, and very quickly the bodies in the trunk would be discovered.

They passed through the town of Walsenburg around three thirty, and Schey began to push the car, the speedometer topping seventy much of the time on the long straightaways, and he never drove less than sixty, although he was careful not to wake Shamus.

There was some construction going on in Pueblo and the route was detoured to the west, around the downtown section, but soon they were heading north again.

Shamus woke up about ten miles south of Colorado Springs, needing to urinate again, and then curled up and fell immediately asleep without, Schey suspected, even realizing what he had done or where he was.

The mouqtains seemed very close through the southern part of the state, and especially through Colorado Springs. Pike’s Peak wasn’t far to the west, but Schey could not pick it out in the darkness.

There was quite a bit of early morning traffic around the towns. Most of it was ranchers down for early morning coffee, Schey suspected. Then they’d be off to the feedlots or the mills.

Schey realized that they were very conspicuous, traveling like this. They had Colorado plates on the car, but they were obviously out-of-towners—one man sleeping in the front, a woman sleeping in the back. It was gas-rationing time. What were they doing traveling?

The sun was beginning to illuminate the eastern slopes of the mountains a wonderful golden color, and Schey sped up again. The land became dull and uninteresting for a while, but then they began to get signs that they were coming to a much larger city.

There were junkyards, mostly empty now that the war was using up most of the scrap metal; small, junky motels that Schey looked at longingly; power lines overhead; little shacks, their east-facing windows lit with the morning sun like diamonds under a strong light.

Eva woke up and looked around. “Where are we?” she demanded from the back seat.

Schey looked at her in the rearview mirror. “Just coming into Denver,” he said.

“God, have I slept that long? I feel like hell.”

“Son-of-a-bitch, I gotta pee,” Shamus shouted, bolting straight up from a sound sleep.

Schey laughed, and so did Eva. The fat man looked around, blinking, confused for the first few moments about where he was and about what was happening. But then it started to come back to him. He smiled sheepishly.

“Good morning, Burt,” Schey said.

Shamus yawned deeply. “Why don’t you pull over …” he started to say, but then he glanced ponderously over his shoulder and saw that Eva was awake. He blushed. “Er … it’s all right.”

“We’re almost in town,” Schey said. “If you can wait, we’ll be there in another half-hour, and you can drop us off and be on your way.”

“Hey, no, wait a minute now. I got a little place in town. I use it just when I come through. All the guys on the courier runs do.

Christ, it’s great. There’s always chow, plenty of cold beer, usually a little gin or maybe some scotch. What do you