The Drifter

[Jeremor]

This is a story I'm writing for the NaNoWriMo thing, writing a novel in one month. It is a work in progress, and I would please ask that no one post in this thread until it's been finished. Thanks.




THE DRIFTER


~ Table ~
~*~ of ~*~
~ Contents ~






Prologue (http://role-player.net/forum/showthread.php?t=51029&p=1719751&viewfull=1#post1719751)
Chapter 1 (http://role-player.net/forum/showthread.php?t=51029&p=1719769&viewfull=1#post1719769)
Chapter 2 (http://role-player.net/forum/showthread.php?t=51029&p=1719781&viewfull=1#post1719781)
Chapter 3 (http://role-player.net/forum/showthread.php?t=51029&p=1720852&viewfull=1#post1720852)
Chapter 4 (http://role-player.net/forum/showthread.php?t=51029&p=1723910&viewfull=1#post1723910)
Chapter 5 (http://role-player.net/forum/showthread.php?t=51029&p=1727921&viewfull=1#post1727921)

[Jeremor]

PROLOGUE

Tires crunched and engines growled. Boots scraped on loose gravel and sandy shoulder pavement. Every now and then a truck would pass by and give a loud mating call, it's throaty warbling horn. The sound of a car soaring past beating 60 miles an hour stayed after it like a cape of sound, growing more strained with distance, and gently echoed somewhere far off in the mountains that this particular highway cut through. And then there was a man, moving much more slowly than those grandly loud and arrogantly fast automobiles. Moving much more slowly than the people driving those automobiles, too. The only sound from him was that of his jacket whipping open from sudden gusts, and the gentle slide of his patched shoes.

He was a hitchhiker. A drifter, a rambler, a vagrant, a transient, a train hopper, a nomad, a wanderer... all these things. His clothes were dirty and his hair a long mess, but his face was young besides his dull gray eyes. The mountain cold bit into his olive green jacket, and then right through the rusty red hooded sweatshirt beneath that. Whatever he wore underneath that likely didn't stand much chance either. Faded holey jeans covered his legs and ancient white tennis shoes were upon his feet, one wrapped in duct tape. One hand was up, thumb extended, and the other held a cardboard sign over his chest. Black permanent marker asked a simple question, beside what seemed to be a Scratch And Sniff sticker of a strawberry.

“Heading South?” The sign wondered.

The hitchhiker continued walking, only occasionally turning about to ply his trade at a passing car. He didn't really think about much, not on the road like this. Or, more precisely, he didn't need to think about much of anything. To his world there was no urgency, no time limits or prizes to grab. There was only the road and the nature it cut straight through. Sometimes a person would share the road with him, and they would either be a nice person or a bad person. Most people who bothered stopping to pick up a hitchhiker were nice people, though, contrary to many urban legends. Most people just wanted a companion for a while. They did say humans were social creatures, though the drifter would add that they were mighty picky ones.

Behind him there was the building rush of a car cutting through the air, and so the hitchhiker turned about to raise his thumb and show his sign. It was more reflex than anything. There was a hesitation, one could hear it in the way the engine stalled out for a second as a foot was let off the gas unconsciously, and the hitchhiker knew that he'd gotten a hook in the mouth. And then a bite, as the car slowed down. Hitchhiking was a bit like fishing, which the drifter had always had a soft spot for. It was a bit easier than fishing since the fish came to you, no reeling required. Give it another decade or so and they'd probably make fishing rods that didn't need to reel either.. and they'd be pieces of junk.

The car rumbled to a stop a few yards from the hitchhiker. It was a brown sedan of some year and model that no one cared about. Lost to the memory of even the most obsessed fanatics. In the driver's seat was a plump man that looked like a divorcee, most assuredly, with a balding head and droopy eyes. The drifter just felt these sorts of things. He knew why this man, out of all the others, had stopped to give him a ride. It was alright, though. The window descended via arcane magic or machinery.

“South Carolina far enough?” The driver shouted out the window to be heard over his car's fossil engine.

“Yes, plenty.” The drifter replied, not shouting, and took off his backpack before opening the door. He placed it on the floor between his knees. “Thank you for the ride, sir.” Manners were important, even to a hitchhiker. Especially to a hitchhiker.

“Oh, don't mention it.” The man replied as the sedan pulled back out onto the road and got up to speed once more, gently. A car in this shape had to do everything gently. On the dashboard, every warning light was on. Begging it's driver to get it's oil changed, to put on it's seat belt, to get the engine checked, to put more gasoline in the tank, too please drive safe, for heaven's sake. It seemed like there was nothing so paranoid and motherly as a piece of dangerous machinery, these days. So many warnings and bright signs and promises to be careful. It must be tough being a parent these days, you had so many other things doing your job for you.

Now was the quiet awkward time, the drifter wondered how long it would last. He had always found it easy to be quiet in a car, to simply look out the window and enjoy the scenery that was moving past. Throughout his entire life, he'd done just that. Enjoying every tree he'd seen thousands of times before. Every rusted fence, every rundown house, every pothole. Man's beautiful things always bored him, somehow. They were meant to be beautiful. It wasn't surprising. The interesting things in life were the surprising ones. The broken things of the world had a story to tell. Beautiful things were shallow by comparison.

“So, where you trying to get to, anyway?” The driver asked, sweating. The passenger was a little disappointed the silence broke so quickly.

“South Carolina.” The southbound wanderer replied, looking over with a polite smile.

“Well, ain't that ironic.” The driver laughed a little.

“Not really.” A tree flew past the passenger window, clinging to the side of the mountain.

That paused conversation. This was how it worked, though. It came in little pulses as the pipes got warmed up.

“I've been driving all night, from West Virginia. Ever been there?” The driver asked.

“Probably.”

“Yeah. Well, had to get away from there, just wasn't healthy anymore. Toxic.” The drifter didn't think he meant air pollution. “Just when you think you can trust somebody, you know? Just when you think... that's when they get you. Just had to leave. That's right. You probably know all about that though, don't you? Leaving?”

“I sure do.” The transient nodded. Everybody knew about leaving.

“Yeah. I don't really know why I went south, though.” The driver kept looking over at the person he was, ostensibly, talking to. The drifter hated when they did that. Keep two eyes on the road at all times, the motherly warnings said in sterile black and white. “People should go west when they're trying to start a new life, right? Isn't that what this country was founded on? Heading west. Trying to get away from civilization. So why am I going south?”

It was a rhetorical question, but the drifter knew his place. “Because the weather's nice.”

The older man chuckled. Much as the passenger enjoyed silence, this was the payment for the ride. An open ear and a joke or two. “Maybe so. Guess there's nothing much left to find out west, except for more crazy. I really envy the guys that went out to find gold, you know? They had something to go find. Some kind of dream. Where does a guy go to dig up their dreams out of the ground, in this day and age? It feels like the world is all used up, if you ask me. All the good things have been taken. Wasn't that in a song?”

The drifter shrugged. It was from the song It's My Life by The Animals, but nobody wanted specific answers like that. It would just derail his train of thought. So the drifter shrugged ignorance.

“Guess we've just got to be happy with the scraps.” The driver finished, after some pause.

“Not really.” The hitchhiker replied, still looking out the window. The mountains really were beautiful, though they were more beautiful from far away than close up.

“Huh?” The man looked up, surprised from his own thoughts.

“Not really.” His passenger clarified, looking over and then back out the windows again. “The world is still alright, you've just got to look a little harder. Take it for what it is instead of what you wish it was.”

Things grew silent again, but that was to be expected too. It took some people longer to accept help than others, but they all wanted it. Everybody wanted a helping hand, especially when they were opening up to hitchhikers. A stranger.

“Guess wishing has never got me much of anything, that's for sure.” The older man eventually agreed.

“That's for sure.” The drifter smiled and nodded. “Don't worry, Harry. The world will keep being good as long as you don't give up on it.”

The man nodded, then opened his mouth. “My name isn't Harry, though.”
Still smiling, the hitchhiker shrugged. “Worth a shot.”
There was an awkward moment of silence, and then they both began to laugh.

[Jeremor]

CHAPTER 1

“So she says she's taking the dog, and I say have him,” The driver said, loudly, “He liked the taste of your shoes better anyway!”

The car was filled with laughter, loud therapeutic laughter, for not the first time in the last handful of hours. It was a welcome change from the tears that preceded it.

“Good rebuttal, Frank.” That was the driver's real name, Frank. The drifter felt so very close, Harry, Frank... they were both right down that line of 'loud balding man in his forties'. He'd just bet on the wrong horse. Ah well. Nobody was a winner all the time. “It was for the best, too. You needed a clean break.”

“Yeah... yeah, guess I did.” Frank gave a few last chuckles, frowning once or twice as his thoughts turned to what he'd lost. This was the process. A stranger's empathy was sometimes better than a friend's, because it was disposable. When you told someone something, it tinged their view of you. It changed the world around you. By opening up to your world, your world can often close in on you. What is given will be taken, and what's given back sometimes has a price tag attached that we can't see at first.

See, the hitchhiker knew these sorts of things. He knew people. If this whole rambling thing didn't work out, he'd likely have a good track to a psychology degree. What was a therapist, anyway, besides a willing stranger to go talk to? But, the drifter's only price was a car ride. Not a bad deal.

“City limits, pal.” Frank noted as a green sign with white writing said just as much right out the front window. There was no big Welcome To Such-and-such welcoming sign, made out of wood and painted with some quaint country charm. No, for a city all you got was cold metal and high visibility paint. This particular sign was posted on a low concrete bridge spanning a river, with a wide stretch of marsh at the far end. Two docks flanked the bridge, small things with small boats.

“Beautiful Johnsport.” The drifter muttered, looking out at the marsh and the oak trees further on. He didn't need to look at the sign, it was precisely as he remembered it. “Excuse me, North Johnsport.”

Frank didn't look so sure. Past the beauty of the marsh in the middle of day, the swaying of the spanish moss on the old oak trees, the way the sun twinkled off the creeks... was nothing, really. A lot of roads and the green tops of many more trees. Trees outnumbered people down here, 10 to 1 if not worse, but people were still fighting the war. They drove along and the drifter picked out things new to him.

“New shopping center.”, “New neighborhood.”, “New car dealership.”

Frank just nodded along, no more stories of his ex-wife or ungrateful children or shitty job. Now was the time for just a little tiny bit of therapy for the hitchhiker, time for a man always on the move to collect what was different about a place he'd left. Like a computer defragmenting itself, rearrange information to proper groups and updated the GPS map in it's brain. A virus scan. Everyone updated their maps differently, and some with more accuracy than others.

“Say,” The driver edged in with an apologetic expression. The drifter only smiled to him. “Know a place to stay around here? A place to stay for a good while.”

He thought for a moment before answering the man, because knowing places to stay for a good while wasn't really in a rambler's playbook. “I might, though it has been a while. It used to be a nice neighborhood.”

They drove on and the hitchhiker guided the driver, left and right and left again. He'd always had a good mind for directions. Eventually they pulled down a street and saw houses, instead of pawn shops and gas stations and pharmacies. The latter bunch had spread like an STD, with a new one on every corner. Necessities to city life. It was a welcome change to see painted houses and driveways and lawns. Stop signs with bullet holes in them right above black and blue ones proclaiming this neighborhood had a Crime Watch in place. Just when was the last time someone heard of a criminal being apprehended because of a vigilant Crime Watch in place?

“Hey, doesn't look too bad!” Frank chuckled, his large hands twisting the steering wheel a little. The drifter didn't know just what his driver was seeing, because what he saw was a dying neighborhood. Every third house had a For Sale sign in it. “You said there were some apartments?”

“That's right. Oak Ivy Apartments.” Everything had a cute nature-related name, down here. The drifter pointed down another road. “Just take a left, then another left two streets down. You'll be right there, Frank.” The hitchhiker began to search his pockets for something.

“Hey, great. Thanks a lot, pal. I'm real glad I picked you up, you know?” Frank glanced over to the passenger
seat as it's occupant pulled out a scrap of paper. Two eyes on the road, Frank. “It's really been a nice ride. Sure been nice having somebody to blow off steam with. And damn, I don't even know your name!”

“Not important, Frank. Call me whatever you want. If it makes you feel better, there is something you can do for me now.” The hitchhiker waited for a stop sign before he leaned over and showed Frank his piece of paper. Safety first. “I just need you to take me to-”

There was a sudden click and then thunk as the driver's side door was suddenly flung open, and very immediately shouting.

“GET THE FUCK OUT.” A man's voice, but shrill with panic or anger or whatever odd combination possessed a criminal in the act. “I AIN'T ASKIN' TWICE MOTHERFUCKER! MOVE THAT ASS!”

It was then that the drifter saw the blued steel of a snub-nose revolver at the back of Frank's head, each chamber waiting with the copper tip of a bullet. Hanging down from the trigger guard was a little yellow ticket attached by some string... a pawn ticket. As time slowed to a crawl, he got a good look at the man's face as well. It was a tall, lean, black man with a fuzzy beard peppered by white hair. Over his hair was a red knitted cap and his shoulders were draped with some sort of blue bathrobe over a stained tanktop and sweatpants. Like the man had just hopped out of the shower to come steal a car.

“Go Frank.” The drifter whispered, as Frank's shocked eyes swung over to him. It gave him some calm, to put his hands up slowly and then start getting up out of the seat.

“Okay man, okay.” Frank huffed, his face rather red, as he was grabbed and then shoved onto the road.

“Why everybody move so damn slow,” The car thief complained in a strangely conversational tone as he hopped into the driver's seat. “Nigga need a gun to get anything done these days.”

He slammed the door shut and quickly popped the car out of park, swerving off down the street. Hunched over the steering wheel, he took a number of confusing turns at double the speed limit, before finding himself back on the highway running past the neighborhood. And then stuck in the standstill of the evening commute traffic.

“Fuck!” The car thief hammered his fist on the steering wheel in frustration, and then sank back into the seat. He tossed the gun into the passenger seat as he muttered more curses at every driver.

“Ow.” The drifter piped up, rubbing the spot where the revolver had hit him in the chest, and then pick the gun up from where it had fallen into his lap. “You really shouldn't throw loaded guns, you know.”

The car thief sprang out of his seat, thumping his head on the roof of the sedan and then clawing at the handle of the door. No matter how he tried, though, the door refused to open. It had automatically locked itself when the gas was applied, yet another safety feature of Mama Modern Technology, and the car thief didn't think to just pull up the little tab again. Soon he gave up altogether and raised his hands, pasting himself against the side of the car as he looked to the drifter.

“'ey man, 'ey,” He began, real fear filling his voice now. “Look man. I ain't know you were there, man. Let me go. I leave you alone, 'ey, you can have everything, dog. I didn't mean nothin'. I just strayed from the path, Lord Jesus, yes, I'll never rob nobody ever again!”

The hitchhiker was just as surprised as the thief, really. He looked at the gun in one hand and then the paper in his other, and twisted his grip on the revolver to point at the man.

“Sure, sounds great.” He held up the scrap of paper to the man. “Can you take me to this address?”

It took the man just a few minutes to understand and actually read the paper held up in front of him. “What the fuck, man? You playin' or something?” The thief asked and the drifter shook his head. With a roll of his eyes and a shake of his head, in that special way that said this was dumb, he went on. “Okay man, sure, whatever you want. You the boss.”

“No, I'm just the hitchhiker. I have someplace to be, that's all.” A car behind them laid on it's horns, most rudely. He was never quite sure just why the horn had been put on a car in the first place, really. Had they ever been used to warn anyone of anything more important than a red light turning green?

“Motherfuck.” The bathrobe-attired car thief turned back in his seat and started driving again, turning off the busiest street and weaving along a different way. The man was a local. “You know they got shit called taxi's now, right man? Public buses and shit. Fuckin' twenty first century.”

“I'm not the one stealing outdated sedans, so I'm not sure who you're talking to.” The hitchhiker idly looked at the name written on the tag hanging off the revolver. Miguel Angel Rivera. He looked over at his new driver. “Funny, you don't look Hispanic, Miguel.”

The car thief gave him a dull look. “I ain't, motherfucker. It ain't mine. I steal shit, remember?”

“Oh, right.” The hitchhiker chuckled a little. “First time I've ever been in a carjacking, it sort of takes a little
getting used to.”

They continued to drive on, through this part of the sprawling 'city' dissected by rivers. It's many different parts were giant islands surrounding by marsh, rivers, and then the Atlantic ocean. It wasn't too bad, really, once you got out of the nastier parts of the concrete jungle. There was green everywhere but not always by nature's design. The drifter hated those soulless planted little bushes or slender little trees in parking lots. They looked like captives trapped in a cage of asphalt and concrete. It made your feet itch.

Speaking of trapped, the car thief was looking particularly like a captive. It was funny how quickly the criminal turned into a victim. Complaining about this and that, looking over at the gun barrel leveled generally in his direction and sighing. It almost made the hitchhiker feel bad for pointing it at him. He'd been taught never to point a gun at another person, not even an empty one, and that was a difficult idea to break since it made so much sense. He didn't want to shoot anybody, even a criminal.

“You don't seem so bad, really.” The drifter mused aloud.

“Huh?” The thief looked over as they stopped at a traffic light.

“I just mean, why are you stealing guns and cars?” He clarified for the frazzled thief.

“Shit man, I don't know.” He blew it off and looked back at the street in front, the red stop light above... and empty streets. “I guess I just had somewhere to be, okay? Shit to do. Know what I'm sayin'?”

“Guess we've all got somewhere to be.” The drifter nodded sympathetically. The revolver lazily twirled in his hand, from dashboard to roof to car thief. “Frank was a pretty nice guy though. Try not to steal anything from him again, if you don't mind. He's had it rough, with his family troubles and all.”

“Uh, whatever you say man. Yeah.” The car thief looked left and right as the traffic light refused to turn from red to green. The streets were deserted. “Fuck this.”

The old sedan punched forward with a stutter like it was trying to tell it's driver that this wasn't a very good idea. The car rolled out into the intersection and past the traffic light... and a light sprung up behind them, except this one had a loud racket following it. Red and blue with that high whining siren. Why had police picked such a whiny annoying way of representing the law?

“Aw shit!” The car thief said, before sticking the gas to the floor. The sedan gave another stutter and a wheeze as it jumped up to high gear. The police car behind them jumped up to meet them, a big hulking muscle car in black and white. The hitchhiker knew they couldn't escape it. It was a hunting dog made for the hunt and nothing else. Lived for it. The sound of it's growling engine behind them sounded eager and hungry.

The thief was a good driver, though. He swung the wheel wildly and turned down a side street, jerking them both all around. It was a merry chase. Right up until the sedan's engine blew up.

There was a sudden shuddering that took hold of the whole car, acceleration coming in spurts and then dying, each a little less than the last one. Something crashed to the ground under the car, scraping, and then a loud ticking sound like a time bomb. The sedan rolled to a halt as all power gave out and the hunting dog silently rolled up behind them. As the criminal pounded on the steering wheel and cursed, an amplified voice gave orders to them.

“PUT YOUR HANDS UP AND GET OUT OF THE CAR.” It boomed and crackled a little. The officer speaking was huffing, as though he'd been chasing on foot this whole time. “CEASE AND DESIST YOUR RESISTIVE, UH, ACTIVITIES, CITIZENS.”

“This is yours, I think, Miguel.” The drifter said as he tossed the gun onto his driver's lap, and then got out of the car slowly. The thief checked the chambers and found them now empty. With one last curse, he slowly got out of he car as well. Leaving the gun under the seat.

A police officer, in navy blue and gold stripes, was standing behind the door of his patrol car. His partner was doing the same on the passenger's side, and both carried weapons with flashlights shining.

“PUT YOUR HANDS ON THE FEET AND SPREAD YOUR TRUNK!”

“What?” The thief turned and yelled.

There was a slight pause, a changing of hands on the speaker. “Put your hands on the trunk and spread your feet, citizen.”

The two, drifter and car thief, did as they were ordered. The officers moved in like they were dealing with domestic terrorists or man-eating tigers.

“No sudden movements gawd dangit!” One of the officers yelled in a thick country boy accent. He stepped in to frisk the car thief roughly. “Quit resistin' or I will be forced to detain you with harsh, uh, measures.”

“Alright man, shit, I ain't resistin'. Chill.” The thief said as he was roughly shoved onto the trunk of the car. Meanwhile, the other officer rummaged through the hitchhiker's pockets and laid out everything he found. A matchbook without any matches, a roll of candy with two pieces left, an empty wallet, and a scrap of paper with an address written on it. The car thief's pockets weren't being searched so much as they were being violently mugged.

“Citizen, you are being lawfully detained, and any further resistance will be met with uhh non-lethal retribution.” The thief held his hands out and laid motionless on the trunk, asking them how he was resisting. “Rick, get the taser out. He ain't listenin'.”

“I am listenin' god damnit, sir, you ain't gotta do that, sir.” The car thief pleaded. “I never steal again, Lord Jesus, I swear it. I see the light! I never rob nobody ever again-”

It was about then that the officer shot him with the taser. The hitchhiker watched it all casually, being totally forgotten about, as the thief jerked straight up and then frantically pawed at where the electrodes had stung themselves through his bathrobe. It made the drifter feel a little bad. Just a little. He did deserve some of it. The two cops simply chuckled, watching him hop and paw until he finally got the electrodes off and collapsed against the car.

“Yall fucked up, you know that?” The car thief huffed, sweating.

“Yeah yeah, hands behind your back, scumbag.” The cop twirled him around and slapped the cuffs on. “You should know the drill by now, Kenny. How many times we gotta do this before you quit running?”

“Man, I run cause you always do it.” The car thief, Kenny, complained as he was walked to the back of the patrol car.

The other officer came over to the drifter then, finally. “Sir, would you like to explain to me just what the situation is here?”

“Oh, I guess I'll do my best...” The hitchhiker began slowly, telling him about Frank and a bit of his many troubles. Then on to showing Frank the neighborhood, when suddenly the car was stolen with the drifter still in it. The officer interrupted there.

“So, you're saying you were a hostage, then? Kenny here held you against your will?” He seemed to salivate at the possibility of adding kidnapping as a charge.

“Well, no. Not really. I sort of just needed a ride.” The way the officer's lips drooped and eyebrow raised made the drifter want to laugh. “He wasn't so bad. I've been picked up by worse.”

The cop scratched his head with the butt of his flashlight. The hitchhiker found that it was often the plain truth that confused people the most. Everyone expected an angle or a fabrication or at least a bit of inflating. Even to supposed upholders of the law, the truth was often a strange and inconvenient thing. Justice was blind and had a
tongue as forked as any con artist.

“Okay.” He sighed, shaking his head and pointing his flashlight at the car. “We're taking you to the station, sir. We need a full testimony from you. Right this way.”

What can a person say to that? When an officer says 'right this way' they aren't actually asking. It's an implied threat that you come right this way, or you get dragged right this way while choking on pepper spray. The drifter did as he was told, and rode downtown with the unlucky car thief Kenny.

[Jeremor]

CHAPTER 2

The police station wasn't really downtown, as it turned out. They never were. It was far too big and modern to fit into old downtown Johnsport, anyway. Steel beams and big glass windows about 4 or 5 stories tall. The drifter sat in a wooden chair with a lumpy cushion, waiting in front of a desk. It was an odd feeling. Being inside a police station made you feel guilty of something, it made you think of all the unlawful things you've ever done and then a few of the lawful but immoral things. The hitchhiker had a pretty clean conscience by most people's standards, but everybody had stupid things they regretted. Looking around the police station was a good lesson in that.

There were quite a few other people there, haggard men with tattoos down to old women with teary eyes. Kenny was nowhere to be seen now. He'd been taken down to the lock-up right after all the police in the office gave him a familiar heckling. All of the cops had the same haircut, military style crew cuts with no facial hair. It was sort of creepy just how much they looked like each other. White, beefy, average height. The drifter couldn't really tell them apart.

“Alright, sir.” One of the police clones came over to where the rambler sat, holding out his meaty hand. “Looks like you're all set. Sorry about the trouble, sir, but the city of Johnsport thanks you for your cooperation. We'll be able to put him behind bars for a while with everything you've given us.”

“Yeah, don't mention it...” The drifter got up and shook the man's hand. “Say, could I ask for a favor though? I sort of need a-”

“'ey Mike!” A call from across the room interrupted the drifter. “We're makin' the new guy run the target range in a dress! It's going to be hilarious!”

The officer, Mike, grinned and shouted over across the room. “Naw, it's my patrol! I got to get going.”

“Sure sure, mister supercop, leave some scumbags for the rest of us.” A large group of the proud men in uniform began to guffaw as they left out the back. One carried a yellow sun dress with pink flowers on it. The last out shouted one last thing before leaving. “We're doing some taser duels later too, you still in?”

“Have I ever missed a taser duel? Come on! Fastest hand in the west, pal.” Mike laughed and flipped out his taser gun, to blow the smoke from the tip of course, and then holstered it again. He was still chuckling when he turned back to the drifter, motioning for him to go on. “Sorry about that. What'd you say?”

“I really need a ride.” The drifter spoke quickly, before some meathead popped in with another wacky rookie hazing ritual. And what the hell was a taser duel?

“Of course sir, no trouble. I'm about to go out right now, we'll swing by and drop you off wherever you need to be.” Michael Crew-cut nodded with a wide smile.

“Great. Awesome. Thank you-” The drifter sighed, and then looked at the officer's name tag. Felt weird calling a cop by his first name. “Officer Loranky. Thanks a lot.”

And away they went, walking out to yet another of the brand new black-and-white muscled things the police drove now. They looked dangerous with their tinted windows. These were cars that the bad guys were supposed to drive, while the cops kept up with goofy old cruisers. The cops would swerve and spin out a few times, but in the end they'd corner the bad guys and justice would be served... actually, the police very rarely caught anyone in the movies. They did just about everything except catch the bad guy. Huh.

They pulled on out of the gated parking lot behind the station and were on the road, where they then proceeded to completely ignore any semblance of a traffic law. It made the hitchhiker want to latch onto his seat, but they sure made good time. All the while the radio would keep buzzing as the dispatcher sent out calls for police, but oddly no one seemed to respond to any of them. The officers in the seat sat and looked around as if they had completely tuned out the dull drone of crime after crime. 10-56, 10-51, 10-61, 484, 10-60... these and more pouring over the radio static. What any of them meant was a mystery to the drifter. Not very serious, one would hope.

“Attention all officers, attention all officers. SWAT requires assistance. Drug bust. Details incoming.”

This message, though, caught their attention. Both of the men perked up straight, and the man in the passenger seat swiveled around a laptop and checked something with a few agonizingly slow and awkward taps on the keys. He read something and then turned to his driver, his eyes lighting up like a 6 year old blowing out birthday candles.

“Mike, check this out.” He read from the screen, slowly, like he needed some time. “Marijuana grow operation, swat en route, require officers for perimeter. Subject considered extremely dangerous. Warrant pending. Then it has one of them smiley faces with the wink. You know I like that one.”

Mike looked to his partner and nodded. “I know buddy, I know. Flip on the hood and lets go bust some potheads!”

“Ooorahhh!” They shouted in unison as the lights flashed flashed on. The officers then proceeded to bang their palms on the dashboard as they got more and more hyped up, like some sort of troop of monkeys. The drifter thought about piping up to remind them he was in the back... but thought better of it. They wouldn't be listening right now. He was a prisoner now, just like most everyone else that rode back here.

They swerved the car around and blared the siren, causing civilians to swerve in response to get the hell out of the way. Well, most did. There was always one or two deaf ones that didn't move an inch. One had to admire their courage at just sitting there as the cop car sped toward them. The hitchhiker would've hid in a dumpster if he knew these two were behind the wheel. They continued whooping and laughing and grinning. The passenger cop took out his gun and checked the action, sliding it back and popping forward into place. Checking the clip to make sure that, yep, those bullets hadn't run away, then slamming it back in. It was quite a racket combined with the siren above. The drifter only held onto the seat tight and hoped this would all end soon.

Unfortunately, that was not to be. Even the officers began to lose their enthusiasm as they realized just how long a drive it was out into the country. Grow operations usually meant being in the ass end of nowhere, of course. That was sort of the point. Soon they had passed out of the city and entered the realm where trees reign supreme. Tall and ancient, they reminded one just how new human beings really were to the Earth. How long it had stood before their rise to power and just how powerful it was in spite of it. The forests where still here. The drifter enjoyed watching the countless tree trunks skate past.

At some point, the men in the front seat started to sense they were getting close. Maybe they could smell it, or maybe their GPS system told them. They began to get their adrenaline flowing again, pumping themselves up as a way of counteracting the nervousness they likely felt. The fear of taking on some hardened drug traffickers, maybe, in a heated firefight. With explosions and machine guns and Bruce Willis and all that sort of thing.

“Woo, this is a helluva lot more fun than cleaning up traffic accidents.” The driver grinned over at his partner.

“Traffic collisions, Mike. Remember the memo?” His partner responded with a momentary frown, but shook it out of his head and grinned back. “But yeah! Woo! Get some!”

Their backseat drifter rolled his eyes as they carried on, yet again, with getting wound up. He supposed that was the crux of the issue, though. Writing speeding tickets couldn't really get anybody excited about waking up. If that was all there was to being a cop, it'd be about as much fun as working the window at a fast food joint. Dealing with assholes all day. That was pretty much customer service, wasn't it? In a job interview 'I'm good with people' was code for 'I deal with jerkoffs pretty well'. It was a very useful skill to have. Being a police officer was really the most scrutinized customer service job you could have. Could you blame them for wanting to shoot people with tasers as often as they could? It was stress relief.

The car bounced around on dirt roads, the land growing hilly as they went further away from the coast and the rivers. The drifter could sit and look out on those forest covered hills and remember walking in them when he was a boy, with no idea where he was or what he was supposed to be looking at. His father would point this and that out, and he would nod and strain to see just what he was supposed to be comprehending. Most often he wouldn't catch it that first time, and be forced to puzzle it together next time. It seemed that was how everything went. Either you did it perfectly the first time and then never quite got it just right again, or it took about two times of fucking up to puzzle together the right way to do it all the time. To this day, he could remember his first perfect strike while bowling... but never remember how he did it. Annoying.

In the midst of all that inner reflection, the drifter barely realized that there were sirens in the distance, through the trees. A lot of sirens, and a nice big black box with wheels that had SWAT stenciled on the side. It looked like a food truck trying to look scary, but he wasn't about to say that out loud. Their car slid in beside the semi-circle of other cops, spitting up rocks and sand behind them. They were all parked right out front of a rusty little house trailer up on cement blocks, with a rusty satellite dish and a garden of weeds. All about the yard were rusted hulks of automobiles, peeling boats, boat trailers, flattened wheels, piles of rotting logs, and other useless assortments. What use any of this could possibly be to anyone was a mystery, but the drifter had seen these sorts of places many times. These things had been new once, or as close to new as any redneck got anything, but they'd now become lawn ornaments. Figures of the natural world. Things reclaimed.

One thing struck the hitchhiker as odd, though. There seemed to be very little stealth going on, from the police's approach. Perhaps the 'grow' wasn't here but further in? That's all that would make sense. His cops got out of the car, and he only just caught one of their attentions in time to let him out of the back seat before they ran off. The drifter followed after them. He'd never seen a drug bust before, after all. Might be a good time.

There was a mass of navy blue men, with a couple of swat team members that were dressed up fit for World War III. Black helmets, elbow and knee pads, goggles, fingerless gloves, high-tech assault rifles with every manner of flashlight, laser pointers(not just one but three, to triangulate your shots), four different kinds of scopes, and a bottle opener. Oh, and of course, some slaps of camouflage. How in the world any of them could be concealed anywhere while carrying such gaudy weapons, the drifter did not know. They milled around on the trash-strewn front lawn, high-fiving and punching each other on the shoulder and going 'oorah, get some'.

There was a call for attention and they quieted down to face a senior officer, decked out in body armor from head to toe with SHERIFF painted on the front in bronze writing.

“Alright gentlemen,” The man, who had a very nice mustache poking out above his balaclava. “Glad to see the nice turn out, good to see everybody came down. We're just going to have a little safety briefing before we get this show on the road. Now, everybody knows how to switch their pistol's safety on and off, right?”

He looked around, as a fair portion of the officers shuffled their feet and looked at the ground bashfully. The sheriff held up his hand and drew his own sidearm.

“Alright, alright, that's okay. That's okay.” He held up the pistol and indicated where the safety lever was just above the trigger. He wiggled it back and forth.” This little guy right here, that's your safety. Alright boys? You just wiggle that guy back and-”

POW. A gun went off in the crowd of cops and everyone ducked and then turned around to look at the puff of smoke still in the air. One officer stood, looking around guiltily.

“Now who the hell gave Ricky real bullets? Somebody please take that from him.” The sheriff pointed and Ricky handed over his pistol. He was given a wooden gun to replace it. “Good. Alright. See, this is why we have these safety briefings. Safety first, boys. Anyway, I guess we're ready. Lets go kick some tail! Yeehaw!”

The sheriff shot his gun in the air to punctuate his 'Yeehaw!' and then turned to face the house trailer... just as the cracking front door swung open. An old wrinkled man in a tank-top and loafers waddled out.

“Now what 'n dah hell's all da racket out dahh?” He yelled in his feeble old man voice, hunched over. “I dun want nothin' yer sellin' god dammit.”

The sheriff pointed at the old men and yelled over his shoulder. “There he is boys! Arrest that scumbag! Zero tolerance!”

There was a roar as the mass of police officers carried out the order, surging toward the house as the old man looked around in confusion. A loud fwumpt was heard as a teargas canister flew through the air, soaring straight over the house and causing much discomfort to some squirrels in the back yard. One gun went off, and then a few more followed it, but the bullets were sprayed seemingly at random into the side of the home all about the old man. He was entirely untouched and didn't flinch an inch. Glass shattered and electronics fizzled inside as the trailer was aerated. Finally, mercifully, a pair of officers rushed up the wooden steps and took the old man under the arms as he yelped in surprise. They lifted him up as a trophy and the shooting stopped.

“We got 'm boys! We got'm! Woo-wee! Yee-haw!”

The drifter watched it all crouched behind one of the cars, scared some ricocheting bullet would hit him... or some insane cop would think he was an accomplice. They all gathered around as the old man was taken down the steps and paraded before the proud sheriff.

“Sir, you are being charged with possession with intent to distribute. Anything you say can and will be used against you...” He read the man his rights, and then proceeded to violate them as he ordered his officers to go tear the trailer apart. “You wanta tell us where you're hidin' the weed, scumbag? Eh? Make it easier on yourself.”

The officers inside were ripping everything to shreds and tossing things out of the window. The old man watched on in horror and yelled at them.

“Quit it you idjits! I'm 72, what kinda distrubutin' am I goin' to do?” He looked flabbergasted, crossing his arms over his chest even as the officers held him aloft.

“We got a tip off that you were growing Marijuana on the premises, sir. And we intend to make sure you cease and desist your criminalizin' ways with all haste and prejudice.” The sheriff said smugly, then frowned. “Er, without prejudice, that is. With prudence. Right, that's it. Prudence.”

“Oh gawd dammit, yer talkin' about the wildwood weed.” The old man groaned and nodded his head. The officers turned him toward where he was nodding, in his side yard. “Damn thing jus' started growin' there, I didn't plant it, ya idjits.”

And, sure enough, there was growing a beautiful marijuana plant. A single marijuana plant, clinging to the side of a rusted pipe stuck into the ground. The drifter had never actually seen one in person. Weed was a good word for it. How in the world had anyone gotten the idea to smoke the stuff? Was there a science devoted to smoking things in pipes?

“Is I s'posed to go aroun' killin' everything in the woods that don't look like the right kind of weed jus' cause you don' like it?” The old man continued berating the officers, who all looked somewhat confused, as he was still held aloft by the crew-cut paramilitary-garbed muscle-bound gentlemen at his sides. “Thought this was 'merica, gaw' dangit. I'll grow a garden of poison out'a rusty tank if'n I wan' to. That's what this 'ere country were built upon. Doin' stupid things out of spite 'n pride, gaw' dangit!”

He argued a very compelling point, by the drifter's opinion. Immigrants came here for a better life. One full of American flag bikinis, guns, and fast food chains where you could get a double cheeseburger for two bucks. That was the American dream.

“Alright alright, shut this scumbag up.” The sheriff cut through the argument, waving his hands, and then pointed toward the car. “Toss him in the back of the paddy wagon and lets wrap this up.”

A few of the officers shuffled their feet uncomfortably and looked at each other. The sheriff noticed.

“What? What's wrong?” He asked, flipping up the bulky clear visor of his riot helmet.

“Sir, we can't call them paddy wagons.” A cop explained. ”It's, whatcha callit, inconvenient?”

“Naw naw, it's incompetent.” Another popped in.

“No, not incompetent, it's inconsiderate.” And another.

All the officers nodded and agreed. It was inconsiderate. That was the one. The sheriff covered his mouth and scratched his cheek, looking embarrassed.

“Sorry boys, you're right. Forget I said that. Heck, my mother's side is Irish! I love whiskey!” The sheriff said, backtracking quickly, and a few of the officers looked around even more uncomfortably. The old man, however, began to grin.

“Oh 'ey boyos, I tell ya...” He began slowly, sucking on his dentures. “I got a fair bit o' the Celtic blood 'n me, too...”

The shining enforcers of the law looked confused for a second. Then the sheriff went white as a sheet.

“I tell ya, my feelings is mighty hurt about them comments on this 'ere heritage ah mine.” The old man picked up his chin and nodded with his grin. He gave a high-pitched old man chuckle as the officers let him down to the ground, while they crumpled and backed away as if from a suddenly dangerous animal. Or disease ridden pest. “Migh' just hafta get ahol't of the news 'n tell'm about this 'ere harassment. Ah-hee-hee...”

The officers back away from him, crouching down, as they all went pale. Er, paler. The sheriff choked on a few apologies and orders, anger and fear warring against each other inside of him. It was a very well played plan on the old man's part, the hitchhiker watching from behind the cars was rather impressed. Some day, when he was that age, he hoped he could manipulate the law and weasel his way out of trouble with the same skill.

With the cops parting like corn stalks, the old man waddled his way back into his now very drafty home. The ones inside came stalking out looking guilty and disappointed. With a last laugh, the house trailer hermit closed his flimsy door behind him. It fell off the single hinge that had still be left holding it, but it still had a good feeling of finality. The cops all flinched when it banged to the ground. After a moment or two, the sheriff composed himself and began waving around his nightstick.

“Alright alright, what the hell 'er you all waiting for? Get out of here!” He pointed the nightstick at the swat team that was attempting to sneak back into their black food truck. “And yall, get out there 'n make sure nobody saw us shoot up this citizen's house! We don't need no witnesses to this 'ere debacle. Witnesses is trouble.”

The swat team nodded and the drifter took his cue to get out of dodge. Any rambler worth his holey socks knew when it was time to go, and it didn't take a rambler worth his holey socks to know that having an upset swat team looking for you was bad news. He slipped away into the forest then, having to avoid the road where they would look. The woods grew thicker and thicker, then started thinning out once again... just as the ground grew wet with swamp water.

[Jeremor]

CHAPTER 3

It wasn't the first time the drifter had mucked through a swamp, of course, but it had been quite a while. He'd been to far away places up north where it was cold and dry all the time. The trees there looked sad, somehow. They looked unfriendly. Was that the truth or was it just a wanderer's homesickness? Someone else would have to answer that. Long as he could remember, he could analyze even his own reactions and feelings to things. Dissect them and stick it all under a microscope, pinned in place no matter how it squirmed. At some point he realized, though, that it didn't matter. All people were wired certain ways and trying to go against that wiring was impossible. It was like a tiger changing it's stripes, or a cat changing the way it's white mittens were shaped. We were all machines, really, just of a biological sort. Computers with sometimes faulty hardware and sometimes brilliant ingenuity. That didn't lessen the beauty of humanity, it enhanced it. That a biological anomaly can create things with the scope of depth that mankind has.

All this inner thought kept the drifter wandering, putting one foot in front of the other as he so often had. Every now and then he would step down into a puddle or the edge of the green-scum covered ponds. It was an art to walking in a swamp without hip-waders. You either accepted you were going to get wet and nasty or you tried to dance along it's edges picking your battles. The hitchhiker really didn't feel like getting wet and dirty. A wet and dirty wanderer didn't get nearly the same sympathy as a relatively clean one. Nobody liked tracking mud into their car.

The day began to mope it's way into late afternoon and sighed at the evening laying ahead. People from the city didn't realize that it got dark a lot quicker in the forest. The tall trees ate up all that sunlight like fat kids at a pizza party. Whatever was left trickled on down to floor. The woods were a magical place in the morning and afternoon, filled with mysteries and treasures, but at night that changed. When darkness fell, the woods and the swamp were no place for humans to wander. You were unwelcome. Everything else got up and moved just when you could see it the least. Things went bump and crackle and skitter while you were hoping to god you didn't walk face-first into a spiderweb, or put your foot in a snake hole. No, the woods were a powerful place.

The drifter really didn't want to have to deal with spending the night in the forest. Even though he didn't actually have any destination for where his feet were carrying him, he did have a plan. See, at least in this part of the country, anyone that knew how to walk in one direction wouldn't get lost. You'd find a road sooner or later. It might be dirt, but it'd be a road, and where there were roads there were people. Where there were roads there were cars, and where there were cars there would be rides to hitch. And besides, could a rambler ever truly be lost?

There was the loud crack of a rifle in the distance and dirt exploded left of the drifter's feet. A slight pause, and then another crack and explosion of splinters out of a tree to his right. It was about then that shock and confusion faded way to self-preservation. The drifter dove behind a fallen tree just as another gunshot pounded it's way through the woods. He didn't want to know just where that one would've hit. As he laid behind the rotting log, he waited for another gunshot. Waited and waited. He had never been shot at before(he didn't count the cop's ricochets from earlier), so that was something else to mark off of the bucket list.

Something very hard and round poked him in the back.

“You a strange lookin' one, ain't yeh?” A man spoke from behind the huddled drifter.

Very carefully, he rolled around to look at the voice. In what shouldn't have been surprising, he saw a hunter decked head-to-toe in camouflage. Tree bark patterns with little leaves. Very convincing. The raggedy old #6 racing hat, in blue and red, wasn't quite as convincing... at least, for a tree. It was very convincing for a redneck disguise. The smell of cigarettes and cheap beer helped, too.

“Whoa!” The hunter scrambled to lift his rifle back to his shoulder and the drifter had to quickly raise his hands.

“I'm human!” He said quickly, trying to curl away from wherever the wobbling barrel pointed. “No antlers, honest. Don't shoot, please.”

The hunter had to think about it for a second, perhaps to make sure this wasn't some new breed of deer that had developed the capacity to lie. But he lowered the gun soon enough, and started laughing between spits of chewing tobacco. He offered a hand that the drifter accepted.

“Woo-wee, that was a close 'un. I jess about blew yer damn head off!” He laughed. The hitchhiker didn't really get the joke. “I sware. Jess about blasted you to hell, son. Hyah-hyah!”

“Sure did...” The drifter agreed with an uneasy smile.

“What in the world are you doin' wanderin' around out 'ere? Mighty dangerous.” The hunter pointed out, very astutely.

Why did every idiot, after nearly killing or maiming someone, then point out how dangerous it was? As if their actions hadn't proven exactly how dangerous it was? And they always said it with such an accusatory tone, too. Basically saying that you shouldn't have been standing there. That you shouldn't have been minding your own business. The hitchhiker had found it pretty easy to get through life up to this point without even accidentally pointing a gun at another human being, much less firing it. Dangerous situations only really popped up when there were too many stupid people in the general area.

“Yeah, sure is.” Was all the drifter said, though. Best to not insult a man carrying a rifle who had just shot at you. “I was trying to find a road, actually. Got a little sidetracked, you might say. I really need to get back to Johnsport.”

“Oh yeah?” The hunter slung the big black rifle on his shoulder, and looked at the sky. He rubbed his chin stubble as he thought about things. The stubble was reddish brown, just like his hair. “Well, it's getting' perty dark already, 'n those shots I wasted on you 'er gonna scare off the game anyhow...”

The drifter wanted to apologize for being shot at, but he held his tongue.

“Ah yeah, I s'pose I can give ya a lift. Truck's over 'ere.” He waved his hand as he turned and walked through the forest and toward an open field clearing with plowed rows. There were a few tiny plants growing, but most had been split apart and trampled.

“Yeahhh...” He spit out to the side as he looked at his killing field. “Planted it fer the tick-infested assholes, but they ain't takin' the bait. Probably migratin' away from the area. Yep. Migratin'.”

The drifter had never heard that excuse before. Personally, he had no idea why the deer might be avoiding the unnaturally barren field cut in the middle of the forest that always had a drunk redneck stinking of tobacco sitting at one end. Some sort of miracle of nature, maybe. It'd take a better woodsman than the hitchhiker to unravel that mystery.

They walked on through the field, which was a bit over a hundred yards long, down to these sort of black and green pillboxes mounted up on metal steps. Parked right behind that, not even behind a bush, was a bright orange pick-up truck. A very old one, too, with rust eaten wheel wells. It took a few tries before the handle would give way and the door swung open to allow the hunter to slide his rifle up onto the gun rack. He checked it to make sure it was steady in there good and jumped onto the seat. When his door slammed shut, the gun rack popped off the back window fell down behind the seat into what sounded like a thousand empty beer cans. He didn't seem concerned.

The drifter had to think about it for a minute before he got in. He had to consider that this gentleman looked about as sauced as any white trash does at 6pm on a week day, and was about to operate a manual-shift motor vehicle. But it was either that or walk, because there was a snowball's chance in hell that a drunk hunter was going to give up his keys to a stranger he just shot at in the forest. So, he slid into the passenger seat(or tried to, he had to brush away empty cigarette cartons and potato chip wrappers first) and buckled up tight.

To give credit where credit is due, however, rednecks had perfected the skill of driving under the influence like no other group of people had. The best formula-1 driver couldn't compare in the same position. They swerved a bit, sure, and maybe they ran some stop lights, certainly, and just maybe they were either going 20 miles over or under the speed limit... but they got where they were going. Most of the time. More often than they had any right to, anyway.

The truck was slammed into gear and kicked up dirt as it roared it's way backward and then sputtered around. They flew past a little metal gate and then onto the dirt road leading up to it. It was hard to tell if they were flying along too fast, or if the engine's ear-splitting growls and roars were just because the muffler had rusted off three years ago. Whatever the case, the truck kept in the center of the road more often than it was swerving toward a ditch. That was pretty good for the circumstances.

“So I say, hang the sumbitch and lets secede again! Yeehaw!” The hunter was yelling a conversation in the drifter's direction, but it was quite hard to follow as it competed with the whipping of the wind coming in the rolled down windows and the roaring of the engine inside. There was also the fact of the entire cab rattling around, causing the collection of beer cans behind the seat to clink together like an orchestra of a hundred thumb cymbals.

“Yep.” The hitchhiker replied and nodded whenever it seemed like he had to. “Sure.”

“Tryin' to take our guns, yeah? Yeah?” The hunter bounced around in the seat as he spoke, partly due to the bumpy ride, as he grinded the gears mercilessly. “Okay hotshot, take my gun, okay? Take it 'n see what happens. I'll give'm the bullets too, one at a time, I tell ya. Pow! Pow!”

He mimicked holding his rifle, hunched over his steering wheel, and fired at the imaginary gun police. The drifter shook his head with a sigh and began to rummage around in his pocket for the scrap of paper he'd written the address on, looking down into his hand. That was when they hit something.

There was a terrific thump that hit the truck from the front. The engine immediately went from roaring proudly to sputtering and coughing weakly. They went from speeding along one second to rolling to a stop the next, a stop they eventually found in a side ditch. Thanking his stars that he'd buckled his seat belts(which looked like they'd never been used, actually), he looked over to check on his driver. The hunter was groaning and had a bloody nose from banging it off of the steering wheel, but was otherwise fine. The drifter got out of the truck shakily to assess the damages and see what they'd hit.

The truck was pretty well dented and seemed to be leaking oil. It's days were numbered now. In the middle of the road was what had done the damage, a gigantic 15-point buck laying in the middle of the road. It was on it's side but there was no blood. The drifter thought it'd be a lot messier after a collision like that, but here was this mighty creature laying there with it's eyes closed. He looked away and went over to see how his drunk driver was doing.

The hunter looked like he'd sobered up a bit already. His nose was still bloodied but that seemed to be the worst of his injuries. After settling his hat back on his mullet, he got out of the truck unsteadily and with curses parading from his lips. These ceased, though, when he caught sight of the buck laying in the road. The drifter figured that no miner's eyes had alighted upon gold as this hunter's eyes had upon that deer. He froze slightly and then went over to count the tines of the deer's antlers, counting out carefully... then counting them again. When he was confident of his ability to count, which deserved a fair bit of scrutiny, he stood and gave a low whistle. Then he turned to the hitchhiker.

“A clean kill.” The hunter said proudly. He grinned. “Yessir. Got 'im right on. He jumped right in front of me 'n I nailed him. Perfect shot. Through the heart.”

It was anyone's guess just who he was talking to, since the drifter knew perfectly well what had actually occurred. Far from a clean honorable kill by any real hunter's opinion. Maybe the man was just constructing the tale he was going to tell later at a rundown bar, trying to impress his friends and woo some wrinkled single mother of three missing a front tooth. Who knew? The hitchhiker pulled out the piece of paper he'd been looking forward, clutched in his hand when they'd smashed into that monster buck, and wondered just what it was about this place. What dark black luck surrounded the pursuit of a destination? Was it the place or the journey? Were a rambler's wheels too crooked by nature to be steered?

While the hitchhiker thought these thoughts and the redneck bragged to himself, the monster buck stood up.

The animal shook out it's mightily horned head and snorted once, which got the drifter's attention but not the seasoned hunter's. He stared as the deer looked to each of them, these odd humans that had so rudely crashed into it, and he could feel the regal disdain in this King Buck's gaze. The sheer confidence gripped your heart and made you understand that this thing owned this forest. It had beaten every other buck and mated with every doe. What life a deer could live, this one had lived it. He was legend. A deer myth. And they thought that a drunk redneck driving erratically down a dirt road could possibly kill it. Just then, it felt as though not even a cannon would've hurt this thing standing in the road. The drifter barely gathered enough wits to nod at the animal, a nod of apology and gratitude and familiarity perhaps.

And with that nod, the deer shot off into the forest. As it crashed through the brush, the hunter finally realized what was happening and galloped to the truck. He fished out the rifle from behind the seat with quite a lot of cursing and panicking, but he got it out all the same. Then he chased off into the dark gloom of the woods, firing wild shots into the giant hole the buck cut through the branches and bushes and palm fronds. Off he went, the hunter and the king buck, while the drifter merely stood in the road and listened as the shots of the rifle faded and faded into the distance. Then he was standing alone on a road, once again.

[Jeremor]

CHAPTER 4

There was a fair bit of walking after that. One filled with lots of spooky noises in the night and odd sights in the corner of his vision. It was now the dead of night in the woods, on a dirt road leading God only knew where. That any cars would be coming down this way, at this time of day, was quite the long shot. The hitchhiker decided that his sore feet and aching knees needed some rest, so he kept walking until he spotted an old rotting shack just off the roadside. Who had built such a thing wasn't important to him just then, just the fact that it had something sort of like a roof that hadn't fallen down yet. He clambered his way inside and leaned up against his backpack on one wall, curling himself together from the suddenly very chilly night air. The only defense against the mosquitoes and ticks was to tuck all of his clothes into each other and curl into a nice ball. This was working for a while, feeling himself drifting off, but of course that wouldn't go to plan. Nothing ever did.

There was a loud bang and pop of something just behind the shack. Then another and another, following after in a cacophonous cascade. Lastly there was the gigantic, powerful, boom of what could only be a cannon echoing through the trees. These sounds were too loud and mechanical to be anything that belonged in a forest at night, to be anything natural. Even as the drifter stirred from the shack, a terrible white smoke drifted through and obscured everything. The hitchhiker wandered through it, out of the cabin and into the forest. There were more and more bangs as the smokey fog blanketed everything. Then, there was the yelling of voices... and the sound of a bugle horn.

“I say, sirrah!” Yelled one such voice, powerful and dignified, just ahead. “Defend that southern flank or be damned!”

The voice drew in the drifter as he stumbled through the trees. The fog, the smoke, the darkness of night... and then he could see him, illuminated by the torch he held in his hand. He was astride a brown horse, wearing a military uniform of grey. Upon the man's head was a stetson with a golden cord, crowning his head of shiny black hair and a hanging beard that looked like pitch black Spanish moss. His sunken brow was set determinedly as he stared ahead into the gloom and fog, but at what the drifter could not see. There was the sound of more pops and bangs, and he could recognize them as muskets now. Volleys of musket fire being exchanged. The general on the horse did not move.

“If you cain't drive these yankee scum from our shores, I'll find someone who can.” The man did not shout, not really, but his growling voice carried far. He turned his head to look in another direction... away from the drifter, whom he didn't seem to notice at all.“Do I need to fire that cannon myself or can you ingrates figure it out?”

The hitchhiker only watched the confederate general and listened to the battle supposedly unfolding all about him. The pops of musket volleys reminded him of strings of firecrackers that you threw on the ground and watched them dance as each little piece exploded. But nothing could be compared to the pounding boom of the cannons. He could see the lights of it all just barely through the fog and trees, the magnificent heat of a sudden cannon shot on his face and gunpowder smoke blowing across his face. But he could not see the men firing. And as he looked back to the general on horseback, he found that he could see through the man as if he was a frosted window pane. While he watched him, there was another ghost of the past that materialized nearby.

“Yankees?” The second soldier asked, taking off his floppy hat. This second man did not wear a uniform, only an open shirt and wool breeches, and his musket looked quite beat-up. “I thought we was fightin' the redcoats.”

Without surprise, the confederate general looked down to the revolutionary soldier. “What'n the hell's the difference, eh? Get out there and fire, or I'll whip you for a coward.”

“Yessir, general, yessir.” The soldier stooped and bowed quickly, and then ran out into the smoke. He was gone immediately.

The drifter was mesmerized by what was happening. He took another step forward, toward the general, but his foot scuffed against something hard and unlike a root. Looking down, he saw a grave plaque set into the ground and covered by leaves. The stone was weathered so terribly that no name could be read, not even the dates, but there was a very simple etching of a vine framing whatever the words had once been. Looking around, he thought he could see more peaking under the dirt and leaves and water. It was an ancient graveyard lost to the forest.

“Halt there!” The ghost general called out and the wanderer looked up at him, because he could feel that it was directed his way. Two glowing eyes looked into him, hovering over the ethereal barrel of the pistol he held up. “State yer business or I'll shoot you dead, sir!”

“I don't have any business.” The drifter raised his hands as he spoke more calmly than he felt. His heart was hammering and he was afraid, both of the gun pointed his way(not real as it seemed) and at the ghost seeming to point it. “I'm lost.”

More shots spread out in the distance, another boom of the cannon, and the general lifted his revolver as he looked off in the direction of yelling. It was hard to tell if it was jubilant or frightened. The general's head turned back to him slowly.

“Must of got separated from the reinforcements.” The ghost scratched at his beard while he looked back to whatever battle he could see. “That 'er you're one hell of a bad deserter. Who else would wander into a battlefield?”

A cannon boomed again, that amazing way it heats up the air and pushes against your chest and makes the whole world feel like it wobbled for a second. He could see it, now. Could see more than the fire of the shot, but the actual barrel itself with it's big carriage wheels. A whole team of men, young men, worked to stuff out any embers and then load it once again all under the watchful eye of their gray-haired commander. He raised his saber and shouted to fire, and so it did. The drifter didn't flinch this time. The alluring boom of it's shot pulled at him and made him want to come closer. He wanted to make it work. To aim it, to load it, fire it, and watch what it did to whatever caught it's fury. The drifter looked at the young men working on the gun crew, just as one black-haired wiry boy looked over at him. In his face he found a mirror, reflecting his own, and he knew that he looked into his own soul through those same gray eyes.

Shaking his head, he stepped back, and caught sight of more ghostly men appearing. It was hardly a forest now, but rather an entrenched fort of palm trees and stone grave markers. By the general now stood a man on foot, holding the confederate flag alongside another that held the navy blue palmetto flag. Then another flag bearer came forward, without the same rebel gray uniform. He wore his leather vest unbuttoned and his old linen shirt ripped down the front. High socks, black shoes with shining buckle, and brown breeches. His long brown hair was tied into a ponytail coming apart. In one hand this new man held a stick with an American flag tied to it, an old and tattered one with crooked stripes and only 13 stars in a circle. The revolutionary flag. In the other hand he held a cavalry saber.

“Where are they!?” The ghost from another time shouted, bloodied from head to toe. “Tarleton and Cornwallis... I spit...”

The man, in a rage, sputtered and fell face-first onto the ground. The drifter was in complete disarray and he looked to the other ghosts, whom reacted not a whit for this dramatic scene. A ghostly hand clapped him on the shoulder, making him jump, even though it actually had no feeling whatsoever besides a coolness like being near ice.

“Don't mind him, son. Does this all the time...” A lean old man with white hair beneath an old triangular cap, wearing a green jacket and black boots, told him in a scratchy voice. He smiled, wrinkled but boyish, and then walked over to the fallen soldier with a slight limp. The old commander crouched down and tended to the fallen man.

It was still foggy and dark and smokey with the gunpowder that shouldn't be there. The whole battle that shouldn't be happening, fought by men that were dead. The deafening shots of the cannon and the peppering volleys of muskets. The ghost general still sat on horseback and watched the scene, but suddenly spoke.

“Stranger, make yourself useful. Go down there and get on the line.” He ordered gruffly without even glancing at him, and then went on sardonically. “The South needs every soul, son.”

The hitchhiker wanted to reply, wanted to say he wasn't meant to be there and wasn't dead, so how could he fight a dead man's war? How could he be pushed into a war that was gone and over with for over a century? What sense did it make to punish the living with the horrors of the distant past? These things he wanted to say, but his mouth was frozen shut and he had no voice with which to speak. It would've fallen on deaf ears, anyway.

He was transported to the front lines. The world weaved and moved and surged forward until it froze again beside a ditch. There were a few men, boys really, crouching down in the shallow trench and occasionally popping up to fire their musket at no one in particular. To say they wore uniforms would be misleading, they wore straw hats and oversized pants and fraying shirts and rags. All powdered confederate gray. In their fearful young faces, black and white, the drifter found the same questions he'd wanted to ask the ghost general. There was no bravery here, just suffering.

A bugle call came from somewhere out in the fog, shrilly cutting through the night, and all the men in the trench perked up and looked out at something he could not see. By the way they all began to stuffed their muskets with powder and shot, the drifter knew it was not a friendly call.

“Company, fire!” There was the just-heard yell from the distance and then a line of firecracker muskets went off in a volley. Then came the boom of a cannon, not nearby but distant, yet somehow so much louder. The soldiers in the trench laid down as flat as they could, as other soldiers hollered to get down, take cover, damn them. The dirt exploded nearby the stupidly standing drifter, shaking him, and he fell to the side. Picking himself back up, he looked up just as a line of men began to form out of the darkness and fog, light glinting off of their muskets and polished belt buckles and caps and bayonets... the sharp long points of their bayonets, especially.

“Company, charge!” A yell again, better heard and far more frightening, made the line of shadowy ghostly soldiers raised their muskets and run forward. Southern soldiers fired at them, cannons exploded the earth, but it didn't stop their charge. They came on and on and the boy men in the trench got to their feet to meet them. The drifter stayed on his knees. The groups of men clashed and many of them died, not for the first time, while others did the killing. Neither side was winning, in any sense of the word.

One union ghost broke through the line and charged at the drifter, out of the dark and gloom, and raised his rifle mere feet away. “Die southern scum,” Was what his eyes said, since his lips did not move, but his finger squeezed the trigger and sent a flash of white fire into the drifter's face. The heat and the light blanked out his vision...

He was back in the burnt-out shack, huddled in one corner. No fog, no gunsmoke, and no more night. It was morning now and how high the sun was in the sky told him he'd barely caught onto the tail end of it. No bullet holes, either, which was a welcome surprise. Though logic told him it could be nothing more than a dream, the way his eyes burned to close made him wonder at how much sleep he'd actually gotten last night.

Whatever the case, he decided that this had been a bad place indeed to take a nap... the drifter came from a superstitious place, though he personally was not what one would call superstitious. What he was was a pragmatist, and he recognized that those places with the most superstitions often held the most magic, as well. Not hocus-pocus witches and wizards magic, but magic of the soul. Magic that colored the land and the people in it. A superstitious man's world was full of devils, ghosts, foul luck, and karma. The scientist's world was cold and clinical and unkind, by any comparison.

Not that it mattered, of course, which he preferred. He was the rarity, the bridge between the gap. The one that thought sleeping in a graveyard could get you a nasty haunting, as well as a nasty cold. That you should rest on Sunday because everything you try to do will go wrong. That we evolved, that we were in fact still animals in the process of evolving. Luck and fate and destiny. Ratios, percentages, and decimal points.

These things thought, the drifter got up and slipped back on his backpack. Then he walked outside to make sure of something. Into the forest behind the shack, further into the forest, kicking up leaves as he went. His foot found nothing except tree roots and dirt. After about 10 minutes he decided not to waste anymore of his day and began to head back to the road. His first step back, he scuffed over top of a familiar weather-beaten stone. It was the grave of some nameless forgotten man, ivy-wreathed and all. The drifter didn't gasp, didn't jump back or run away, or even feel very surprised. Of course it'd be here. So, with that, he walked back to the dirt road to find his next ride.

[Jeremor]

CHAPTER 5

It was a long walk before we would find one.

On and on his feet took him, of course. They'd never failed him before and wouldn't do so now. A man could only really depend on his own two feet and the occasional very good dog. Most dogs weren't actually that dependable. Cute, sure, but not very dependable. The hitchhiker had wandered quite a while with a few stray dogs, ramblers every bit as much as he, and he'd met some good ones and some bad ones in his time. They never stayed, though, no matter how long they followed him. It was the wanderer's code. You couldn't wander together... that meant one of you, or the both of you, was following. You could share a path or truck or boxcar for a while, but you had a duty to split off. Every rambler respected the code.

So, he drifted on down the road, walking for hours until he finally got onto a paved road that then turned into a highway. Cars began to pass him by, wind scrubbing his face in that way he so craved. Back in the structured world of human beings, far from that dark forest with it's strange things and people. No one stopped to pick him up, of course, since he looked like he'd just slept in a shack in the forest, but it was still nice to see civilization. He continued walking along the shoulder with his thumb extended.

On and on he walked until he hit a plantation gate, one of the old tourist destinations of the old city. Orchid Plantations. It had a nice ancient-looking stone wall and rustic wooden fences further in for the horse pastures. A dirt road led in through the gate with parking off to the side, and now had a line of people all waiting to turn in despite the hundred signs declaring that this was, in fact, the exit and that the entrance was further ahead. In the drifter's democratic opinion, they should really listen to popular demand and just switch them.

The hitchhiker gave up looking for a ride and walked over to take a look. It was funny, he'd never actually been inside one of these sorts of places before. It felt like a place that you were supposed to go and so he always felt like he'd already been there. He looked a bit out of place, walking around looking at the horses and the old trees with his backpack on, but not too out of place. Not enough out of place to get thrown out of the place. That was enough. The drifter went over and leaned against the wooden fence to watch the horses stand.

“Howdy there, guy!”

A cheery voice assaulted him suddenly and he turned to look. It belonged to a brightly grinning middle-aged man wearing a blue polo shirt tucked into khaki shorts, with loafers and black socks. Beside the happy man was a very disinterested woman that looked more like an android. Her brow was frozen permanently in surprise and her lips curved up in a smile that looked sarcastic right now, big puffy lips that hung heavily. The blonde hair atop her head looked like a wig. The drifter was too much of a gentleman to look at her unnaturally sized bosom squeezed under a t-shirt. She wore wide bug-eyed sunglasses and sandals.

“How are yuh all doing?” The man laughed at some sort of joke, with this odd accent that wasn't an accent. A true vanilla boring way of speaking that made the drifter want to go to sleep. “But seriously. The old ball and chain, hah hah, and I wanted to know if you happened to be a tour guide?”

The hitchhiker thought for a moment and looked around. A rambler guiding a tour. He could do that.

“Sure.” He lied to them. “I've lead tours all across the country, really. What would you like to see?”

“Gosh, see I told you, honey.” The man elbowed his wife, who was chewing gum and still looking bored. He turned back to the touring drifter. “Well, we just got here, and then we were going to head on into Johnsport to see what we could see, you know? We'd like to see all the sights, what the locals really like, you know?”

“What the locals really like. Sure. Got it.” Did the drifter qualify as a local? How long did one have to wander away to lose his title as a local? Someone should pass a law about that. “Well, lets get started here first, I guess.”

“Oh, hold on, one second. Got to go get Precious.” The lanky father weaved his way toward the parking lot. He was gone for a number of awkward minutes in which the drifter considered talking to his wife. Luckily, the dad returned before that was necessary.

Beside him was now a young girl of perhaps 7 or 8, wearing her brown hair in pigtails and a little girl's sort of nice dress. It was yellow with little white stuff that was either supposed to be flower petals or were actually sticky crumbs from whatever she'd eaten last. The drifter couldn't decide. The kid had the same look as her mother, but it was more pronounced due to actually still having a human's face. In one hand was some sort of smartphone and in the other was a lollipop. The smartphone was getting far more attention. There was something sad about a kid loving technology more than candy.

“Sorry about the wait.” The dad said, and then grinned as something flashed in his eyes. He rubbed his stomach. “I need to cut back on snacks. Ha ha!”

His wife rolled her eyes and sighed at the joke, while he laughed on and looked around. The daughter didn't react whatsoever, watching the smartphone screen. The drifter offered a polite smile and nod. Blessedly, that was enough to quiet the goofy dad down.

“Seriously though,” The father cleared his throat as he clutched his family to him. “This is my wife Christina and my daughter Regina. I'm Phil. Pleased to meet you, mister...?”

The hitchhiker was taken off guard. The first person to ask his name was an annoying father of a droll family. He was disappointed, not that his name was worth much more.

“You can call me Tom.” It took a little bit of effort to actually give his name, like his tongue didn't quite remember how to form it. But once it was out it flowed like melted butter. It was him, Tom the rambler. First names would have to be enough, he wasn't quite ready for the excitement of giving his last name yet. “Lets begin.”

Down the center of the plantation was a gravel path lined with little black lamps at foot level, flanked by hanging old oak trees and magnolia bushes and various other iconic images of the area. None of it was in bloom, since it was almost winter again, but the potential for beauty was still there. Instead everything was wrapped in white Christmas lights, the bushes and trees tied up like a fly in a spider's web. Even though the holiday wasn't for another month or more, he was sure that there was some radio station that had started playing carols 24/7 already. The drifter hated Christmas music. Hated anything repeated a thousand times with slightly different changes. It felt like the sort of thing they'd do to Gitmo detainees because it wasn't technically torture... just mostly torture.

They passed by an old cabin squatting on one end of the path and the hitchhiker had to remember that he was a tour guide right now.

“This is one of the slave's quarters.” He pointed and the whole family, even the women, bent forward to ogle it. Hoping to see some blood spatter or hear ghostly sobbing, perhaps. “This is where they, you know, slept and all that.”

“Did they get tortured here, too?” The little girl suddenly piped up, her voice sweet and angelic in spite of the glee she asked such a dark question. It surprised Tom a little. He looked to the parents to step in and clear up such a dumb idea, but they simply looked on ready for a serious answer. They wouldn't find it.

“Oh no, that's what the basement is for.” The drifter joked, but they ate it up as though it was gospel. Shrugging, he played to his crowd. “This is where they'd tend to their daily whipping wounds, of course, and eat the crumbs of stale bread that they were allowed to have. That was assuming they'd fought off the rats and snakes and wolves and lions and alligators, which the plantation owners would shove down the chimney. You know all about that, I'm sure.”

The family nodded their heads. Of course they did. Tom moved on, wandering on down the lane toward the giant plantation home painted a blinding white. It's mighty columns held up the roof over a wide sweeping porch deck. To the side of the house was an old style barn and a very old oak tree. Oak trees aged very much similar to men, it seemed, where they got more and more crooked and fat as they got old, with nice long beards of gray moss. Their eyesight was probably none too good either.

He showed them over to the barn first. It was just simple brown wood, unpainted, filled with hay and a few farming tools... all roped off and separated by an iron fence, because some idiot had climbed inside and done something stupid at some point in the past. There was a nice big trapdoor in the floor that was open, showing a dark cellar. The family seemed interested in that, so he explained.

“This is where they'd keep the ice, in nice big blocks down there.” They seemed disappointed in the truth. It really was lucky they hadn't gotten a real tour of the place, because they'd have been bored silly by the mundane truth of everything. Drifter Tom spiced things up for them. “Where they'd keep the bodies of yankees and indians and escaped slaves, which they shot on sight, so that they could later be sold as medical cadavers.”

They nodded to this explanation, pleased. Especially the little girl, who was really beginning to frighten the drifter. She should really be more interested in ponies and kittens than torture chambers. At least most of the time she wasn't staring at him, with that phone taking up her attentions inbetween.

“Hey hon, what do you call a cold bike?” Phil elbowed his wife, who sighed again. “A bicicle. Hah! Hah!”

The dad laughed by himself and the drifter hid his cringe by continuing down the path. Being a tour guide was a good way to get out of uncomfortable conversations. You simply kept walking down the path and showed people the next thing they should be gawking at, then made up what to tell them about it. Well, real tour guides probably didn't do a whole lot of making up things. They had a very strict list of what to say, and had said it thousands of times before. It was a safe bet that they'd enjoy their jobs a lot more if they could ditch that script, like the drifter was right now. They entered right into the grand plantation home.

“This house was built three hundred years ago, and has probably received many damages over the years...” The hitchhiker began, as they swept through it's immaculate halls and rooms. Everything was graceful, elegant, and cultured with a lost touch. “From indian attacks, the british, Sherman's drunk soldiers, a few mishandled KKK meetings, and a lot of hurricanes.”

Of course, the last was the truth. Quite a lot of hurricanes had likely battered this place. Made you wonder just how well the plastic and paper things they built suburbs out of now would. Did anything built now really have a great shot of lasting 300 years as well? They barely lasted five.

A grand kitchen swept out before them, adjacent to the dining room. It was all set as though some slave owner had expected company a couple of centuries ago and gotten stood up. China plates and silverware. It made Tom the rambler a little sad that an empty house serving only gawking tourists was arranged better than any dining table he'd ever had the pleasure of sitting at. Even in it's frozen time capsule way, it looked somehow more cordial and welcoming than most he'd seen, too. What would they do if he sat down right there with a fast food burger? They'd call the police and lock him up, of course, but it'd be the tastiest burger he'd ever eaten. The most cultured, too.

In the kitchen, he pointed to the big old-fashioned stove with cast iron pans hanging up.

“So, this is where the maids and such would cook for the rich white folks that would sit in the other room.” He glanced to the little girl as he went on. “And it was very much in their interest that the slave housemaids cooked well, or else they'd get tossed into that evening's stew and consumed for leftovers in the morning.”

The girl, Regina, was pleased with that. But, her father spoke up.

“Oh, now that can't be true, can it?” He said dubiously. Tom didn't know why this struck him as outlandish, but nothing before now.

“I assure you, sir. During that time it was actually in fashion among the aristocratic slave masters to consume human flesh. Cannibalism really caught on.” The drifter nodded reassuringly.

“No, not that...” Phil, the dad, waved a hand. “I meant, they let the slaves cook for them? Why, didn't they worry about being poisoned to death? Surely that happened all the time!”
“Ah, that. Right.” Instead of being relieved, the rambler felt disappointed. How could they believe all this nonsense? This was what it felt like to be a comedian that told jokes and received only agreeing nods. It was scary to be the smartest man in the room. “Well, yes, that happened sometimes, I'm sure. The cooks would usually be supervised by a very surly man carrying a bullwhip, so it wasn't much of a problem. Anyway, lets move on.”

They strolled along the rest of the plantation for a ways, but there wasn't really much else worth seeing. Of course, he told the family that deceased slaves would be cremated and have their ashes spread in the cotton fields as fertilizer. And that plantation owners would commonly practice riding their slaves piggy-back to save their horses from getting too dirty on muddy days. But, his imagination began to run dry after that. Eventually, a loop around the property was made that found them back in the parking lot by the family's giant SUV.

“Guess that concludes the tour, then.” Tom let out a deep breath, so glad to be done. It was hard work leading a pack of fools in a fictionalized tour, it turned out.

“Well thank you very much, Mister!” The dad walked over and grasped his had in both of his, giving him a very energetic shake. His clean shaven face was in a grin, just like always, but he had to push his glasses back up his nose as they shook off. “We learned a whole lot and enjoyed it. Didn't we, precious?”

The little girl had already climbed into the car and was entranced by some other gadget with a wider screen than her phone. Still, though, her dad waited for an answer until the drifter cut in.

“Don't mention it...” He said, contrary to thought, as his fingers grasped the scrap of paper in one of his pockets. He pulled it out and thought long and hard about what he was going to do next. Was he really certain he wanted to catch a ride from these people? Did he want to be cooped up in a car with them for the next hour? “Say, if you want to pay me back, I do need a ride into the city.”

But his hitchhiking roots took over. He had no options right now, aside from walking along and hoping someone stopped before night. Something in his bones told him that wouldn't happen and yet another day would be wasted. So, he called in the only favor he had right then. It felt like signing a deal with the devil.

“Well-ll...” The man drew out, for quite a long time, as he finally looked away from his spoiled brat. “I don't see why not! We've got to give back some of that southern hospitality, right? Ha! Hop right in, pal.”

His wife didn't seem to approve very much, or maybe she just had an itch she wanted to scratch, but he hopped into the SUV quickly. It took quite a lot more cruelty to kick a person out of a car they were already sitting in, than to deny them entry in the first place. Another lesson you pick up as a hitchhiker. Some might call it being pushy, but others knew it was just saving your feet some work. The doors were all closed and the family sitting inside with him, the stranger, in the back next to their precious daughter.

“Thanks a lot.” The drifter offered.

“No problem, buddy.” The dad smiled into the rearview mirror and then cranked up the ignition.