The Marchand Woman

“Settle down. This is mañana country. A couple hours of lectures and then the boys probably shoot a few racks of pool—most of them haven’t got all that much to go home to.”

It was frightfully hot, a night for long cool drinks; she squirmed in her sweat and poked her head half out the open window in the search for air. Below the truck a crowd of red ants were dragging a huge dung beetle stubbornly across the earth. She had done her hair up with a few pins in an attempt to leave her neck bare and cool but it hadn’t helped. She desperately wanted a shower.

Harry had withdrawn his hand and she sat far over on her side of the seat, not so much watching the armory as thinking about Harry. It was always her tendency to expose the ludicrous side of things: Can you honestly picture yourself facing this man across the breakfast table every day for the rest of your life? If what she felt toward him was infatuation, what would happen when it wore out? God knew she was not at ease in Harry’s world. She could not bear the thought of losing him—but what was the alternative? Think about the derivation of that word “wedlock.”

Then she thought, I am putting the cart ahead of an unborn horse. But she had no pride left. She would demand that he marry her. Or at least live with her. It came to the same thing; in her tradition—inescapable—marriage was not an experiment but a contract. And now she felt like a Victorian belle—setting her cap for him.

And then what?

Abruptly she turned to face his profile. “Harry?”

“What, ducks?”

“You could be a stunt director.”

“A what?”

“In the movies. Stunts. Airplanes, special effects. You know.”

“I did that a couple of times. In Yugoslavia a few years ago. A guy I knew was making war pictures.”

“Didn’t you like it?”

“The truth. I love it. But I felt like a damn silly ass, play-acting at war.”

“You were young then.”

From the back seat Anders said with a nervous laugh, “Harry’ll never be old.”

But Harry kept his eyes on Carole, grave and gentle—she felt an outpouring of love: She touched his cheek fondly. She was thinking that in nature, no matter what the species, only one male in a hundred was any good. I’m not about to let him go. And to hell with the impossibility of it.

Harry said, “If that’s a job offer I think I’ll take it. This was going to be my last caper anyhow, wasn’t it?”

She breathed, “Oh, Harry!”—like an ingenue; and threw herself into his arms.

“Heads up,” Gle

Entangled with Harry she twisted her head to bring the armory into her field of vision. Men emerged in clusters, all of them in fatigues. A good deal of talk; some calling back and forth, good nights and hasta luegos. She straightened in the seat in abrupt alarm. “How do we know which one he is?”

“He’ll be wearing a silver bar,” Harry said. “Scrunch down a little.”

She slid down in the seat until she could barely see over the rim of the windowsill. Anders hissed, “I don’t see him!”

“Give him time.”

The soldiers were separating, going to their cars. Right in front of the Bronco the battered ruin of a pickup truck started up, flicked on its headlights and gnashed away down the two-lane. By ones and twos the Guardsmen climbed into vehicles and the parking shoulders gradually emptied, streams of red tail-lights retreating in both directions. No one paid any attention to the Bronco. After five minutes nothing was left on the road shoulder except a glossy Trans Am with discreet racing stripes, parked directly opposite the entrance to the armory.

Anders said, “I guess he didn’t come to the meeting then.” Was it relief in his voice?

“Wait it out,” Harry said.

“That’s the only car left. It must belong to the night guard.”

“No. Leave a car alone on this road overnight and you’d come out in the morning and find you didn’t have any tires or battery. The night guard’s car must be parked inside the compound.”

“That’s a point.”

The scheme had been to follow the car and, given the opportunity, run it off the road and trap the driver. Apparently that no longer was going to be necessary—if in fact the Trans Am didn’t belong to a watchman.

The armory door opened. Harry tensed beside her and she heard a quiet click behind her—Anders getting out a pair of handcuffs.

For a moment the man stood silhouetted in the open doorway—she had an impression of size: big shoulders, a squarish head, legs too short for the powerful torso. Then the door closed and the man came down the steps under the exterior light; she saw then that he was quite young. The lights glinted off the insignia on the collar of his fatigues.

“My God in Heaven,” Gle

“What?”

“That’s the guy. That’s the guy who killed her.”

Harry paused with his hand on the door handle. “Nothing stupid now, Gle

“What? Come on—let’s go, what’s holding you up?”

“We don’t want him dead,” Harry said in a firm but quiet way.

The big youth was crossing the street toward the Trans Am, tossing a casual glance at the Bronco. He took car keys out of his pocket and stooped to find the lock in the door.

Harry was out of the Bronco by then; Anders clambered over the tilted driver’s seat and squeezed out after him, hurrying. Carole felt everything tighten—muscles, gut, throat. She saw the big young man recognize the gun in Harry’s fist and straighten up beside the car, going bolt still, his face rising into the light—fear, but defiant stoic acceptance with it.

Anders was moving in fast from one side and Harry spoke quickly, harshly: “Gle

“Easy.”

The big youth’s eyes flicked back and forth from one to the other. He looked once toward the armory and she thought he might yell but Harry spoke again, his words too soft to reach her ears this time, and the youth slowly deflated. Anders was right beside him then and she found she was holding her breath expecting a shot from Anders’ pistol but he only showed the handcuffs to the young man and the youth slowly turned around and crossed his wrists behind his back, staring into the muzzle of Harry’s revolver.

Anders fitted the handcuffs onto him and propelled the prisoner into the back seat of the Trans Am and then Harry crowded Anders aside and climbed in alongside the prisoner. Anders spoke—some sort of objection—and Harry must have answered him from within the car, for Anders threw his head back and she saw his chest rise and fall with a full slow breath. Then Anders looked back at her, at the Bronco, and made a vague signal with his hand: He managed to convey both instructions and bitterness with that gesture; then he got into the driver’s seat of the Trans Am and pulled the door shut. The exhaust puffed smoke and the lights came on.

Trembling, Carole turned the key. The Trans Am rolled away and she put the Bronco in gear and followed it.

She still didn’t know the way; she had to follow closely through the forest. Ahead of her the Trans Am, low-slung and sporty, bottomed several times in the ruts—she heard the clanking. The Bronco pitched her around on its hard springs but she had no trouble handling it and her only moments of fear came when, for brief intervals, she lost sight of the car’s red lights in the deep woods ahead. Each time, however, Anders waited for her. Then finally they were ru

By the time she’d parked Harry and Anders had the prisoner out of the car. She saw that Harry had tied a black cloth blindfold over his eyes. The big youth stumbled as they guided him across the weedy ground and hustled him inside. She followed them in through the back door and the kitchen.

In the front room Santana switched off the television and looked at them all with a commendable lack of visible surprise. Santana must have been out in the fields; he smelled of it. He stood picking sunburnt skin shreds from his nose.