The Big Blue Sky: Forty-six

“Have you seen this man?’ asked the grizzled veteran, to the nervous cashier at the Clark Station in Munising. The cashier was a round middle aged woman, with short snow-white hair and white-framed eyeglasses. She was not at all accustomed to such rudeness. It wasn’t normally something she’d tolerate either, but the fury in the man’s eye made her blood run cold. They were the eyes of a demon, of a creature that saw little value in life other than its own.

“Jesus!” she gasped. The man shook the picture impatiently closer to her face, enough the image began to blur into a blend of pale and indistinguishable color.

“Don’t have all day!” he growled, his equally threatening partner blocking the door. The woman leaned away, straining her bad back, until she could make out the face clearly.

“He passed you when you came in!”

“Who?’

“He had a limp, a dark cap…”

The two men rushed out into the lot and onto the highway, looking up and back along the road. The rain came harder now, big fat drops that sent up a racket, coming in waves off the lake. A lone trailer truck rumbled into town, and an old pale-green Chevy Caprice turned down main Street. The grizzled old veteran ignored the rain and spit, fuming, as though this was all a personal affront. His jaw tightened, lips pursing almost painfully hard, forcing furious breaths through his nose like an enraged bull.

“Son of a mother…!” he snarled, ignoring a camper brushing past by mere inches.

“What the hell is going on?” his partner inquired. The third man jumped from the Suburban and joined them in the street. He cradled a half open laptop they had used to monitor Molly’s cell phone. It was partly protected inside his jacket. He held an arm across the thin black body.

“He was right here!” the grizzled veteran growled, grinding his teeth

“Where?”

“The hobbling old coot,” said the vet. “That was Springer!”

“I knew it was him, when the cell phone signal garbled,” said the man with the computer. “She was speaking to someone, but it was too low to make out clearly.”

“Yeah,” said the vet, ushering the others back to the vehicle, “well, he just made a serious mistake, because now we know what he’s driving. And when we find him, I’m gonna take great pleasure of relieving that liberal journalist head from his body. “

They climbed into the vehicle and roared out of town in pursuit. As they rounded the bend, leaving the town and bay behind, the heavens unburdened themselves in torrents. Lightening danced across the sky, chased by great rolling thunderclaps. Inside the Suburban the three men paid little mind to the gathering fury, instead gave fully currency to their own.