The Spider and the FBI: Part 4 "As If Painted in Place"
"As If Painted in Place"
Part IV of "The Spider and the
FBI"
by PR Chung
County
Road 434
Wyoming
Friday,
July 3rd
"You know this is your
fault."
Mulder looked up from the trunk at
Sally, squinting against the blazing daylight. Her accusation was brilliantly
stunning. "What?" He nearly laughed.
Marylou looked between the two of
them, apprehensive.
"Could you please explain to
me how this is my fault?" He asked Sally, walking from behind the car to
motion at the flattened rear tire.
"If we hadn't come this way I--
I wouldn't have run over that thingy in the road back there." Sally generalized,
waving her arm in the direction they had come.
Mulder looked back down the road;
his mouth twisted with dazzled contemplation.
"What thingy?" He
questioned turning back to her. "There was no thingy in the road. The damn
tire just went flat, that's it!"
"I know I ran over
something," she insisted, "and I wouldn't have if we hadn't come down
this road."
"This direction was your
idea." He argued.
"I wouldn't have come this
way if you weren't with us," she continued, now looking to her friend.
"I only came this way to get him to a phone."
"This way?" Mulder
repeated. "We're practically in Montana, do you realize that?"
Neither of the women said anything. "You have taken me halfway across this
state in the complete opposite direction that I should have been going. There's
a rental car sitting on the side of the road, four hundred miles from here,
that's closer to civilization than we are right now. My partner and superior
have probably entered and left the state of Nebraska by now, if they're lucky
enough not to have run into the man intent on killing the prisoner they're
transporting. And here I am, arguing about my ambiguous role in your narrow
view of the universe."
Both of the women remained silent;
they were looking past him down the road.
Mulder heard the sound of a
vehicle and turned seeing a battered pick-up truck heading toward them. He gave
it a circumspect look, one corner of his upper lip drawing back with
trepidation. The truck began slowing as it neared them, and Mulder could see
two men peering out the windshield with half-witted grins plastered across
their faces.
"Get in the car," he
called back over his shoulder.
Marylou immediately moved towards
the door, Sally too, but only to grab her purse off the front seat. "You
get in the car, woozy agent," she spat at Mulder, "I'm not."
"Sally, what are you
doing?" Marylou demanded.
"Hey there." Mulder
turned seeing one of the men leaning out the open window of the truck.
"Having some trouble here, huh?"
"No, just a flat."
"Gotta spare?" The
driver called and leaned forward for a better view of the scene.
"Right there." Mulder
kept it short.
"Got air in it?" the
passenger asked laughing.
"Yeah, got air. Even have a
jack and lug wrench."
"Well, what do you know about
that?" The passengers turned to the driver, and they laughed hard, too
hard for Mulder's comfort.
"Will you take me to the next
town?" Sally was suddenly at the driver's window.
The two men looked startled for an
instant.
"Uh...?" said the
passenger glancing back at Mulder.
"Sally?" Marylou yelled
at her friend jumping back out of the car where she'd been watching from.
"Uh..." said the driver
also glancing back at Mulder as he reached for his door handle.
"No, I don't think this is a
good idea," Mulder announced starting for the truck.
"Maybe you don't, but I don't
care what you think," Sally snapped at him through the truck windows and
across the two men. "Come on, open up and let me in."
"Uh... all.. all right,"
the driver said and got out.
"Sally, no," Marylou
pleaded with her. "Come on, we'll get the tire changed and everything will
be fine."
"I don't even care, okay?
Since he turned up this whole trip has really lost its appeal for me." She
tossed her purse in on the truck seat next to the passenger and started to
climb in.
"Sally, come on," Mulder
tried, laboring for his best and most gracious of smiles. "There's no
sense in abandoning your road trip. I'll get out of your hair in the very next
town, I promise. You'll never have to see me ever again."
She looked at him for a long
moment, hovering halfway in the truck.
"Forget it." She plopped
down in the seat jaw set. "Let's go."
"Sally," Marylou ran up
to the truck near tears. "No, don't go with these guys."
"We're good guys," the
driver assured her getting back in behind the wheel.
"We'll take good care of your
friend." The passenger assured her.
"Come on, come on, let's
go."
"Sally, damn it, think about
this," Mulder was having trouble keeping the agitation from his voice, he
could feel his jaw tensing and knew he was talking through gritted teeth.
"Please."
Even the driver was starting to
wonder. "You sure about...?"
"Come on, I want to go."
Sally practically yelled at him refusing to look at Mulder or Marylou.
"All right..."
The passengers waved and smiled as
they drove away back down the road leaving a dusty wake behind.
"Shit!" Mulder yelled
turning to the trunk of the Mustang.
Marylou gasped. "I can't
believe she just left with those guys."
"Just some more shit to make
my life harder than it already is," Mulder declared hauling the spare out
of the trunk.
****************************
The sound was so loud it was
almost deafening; the raging torrent of muddy water Walter Skinner found
himself battling and at the same time utilizing to reach Scully. She was just
ahead of him; the water tossing and turning her like so much driftwood, her
head bobbing up and down below the surface, her eyes were wide, and her mouth
gaped as she gasped for breath.
Bright day and rushing then a
split second of deathly silence and gray followed again by the rushing and brightness
and gasping and coughing. Scully sucked in great gulps of air each time she
managed to throw her head back far enough from the water to breathe, but the
water was in her eyes, her mouth and nose. Don't panic, she had tried telling herself
at first, but all equanimity deserted her once she felt the river winning.
Fighting the current was like bench pressing four hundred pounds while being
hit with a fire hose on full. Her arms were growing numb, her throat burned
from choking-
Don’t panic!
Gasp! "Hel-" Cough!
"-p!"
Silence. Rush. Gasp. Choke!
Clutch!
Her fingers brushed at something
solid, her shoulder next but whatever it was gone, still she...
Don't panic! She thought. "Help-!"
She choked up in the blaze of day around her.
Clutch! Silence. Rush. Gasp!
Choke...
Silence...
"Scully!" Skinner
shouted when he saw only her back surface. He spat and choked away dark water
struggling to turn face up, kicking then with all his strength shoulders first
along the current toward her still form.
He bumped into something and
fought to turn again thinking it was Scully but finding it was only a piece of
debris; a knot of branches and grass torn loose from the riverbank. Then, his
heart nearly stopped when he realized he'd overshot her somehow.
At the last minute, Skinner caught
the snarled branches that were precariously caught up on bank, holding himself
above water as Scully was carried close enough for him to reach out and grab.
Snaking his arm around her under
her arms he hoisted the weight of her upper body up and toward him bringing her
head up from the water on back onto his shoulder, but in the effort to do so he
lost his grip on the branches.
As though they were tethered to a
truck moving at top speed he and Scully were jerked away from the bank by the
current. Water blinded him, choked him, fought him for control and possession
of Scully but he would not let go of her, would not let her head dip below the
murky surface again no matter how many times his did.
"Hey!" Skinner heard
someone shouting just barely above the sound of the rushing water. "Hey!
Here! Here! Up here!" Skinner shook his head and tried to squeeze his eyes
clear of water, seeing finally a blur pacing him and Scully along the bank in
an offish, excited dance. "Up here! There's rocks ahead!"
It was Bernstein.
The news about rocks ahead was a
mixed blessing Skinner realized and prepared himself for what would undoubtedly
be a brutal impact. As best he could he forced himself and Scully into the
current attempting to keep as much of his head and neck out of the way of
anything hard ahead.
"Okay, okay!" Bernstein
was shouting now. "Get ready! Now, grab them! Grab them!"
Blindly, Skinner reached out with
one arm connecting hard with an out cropping of rock just a foot or two from
the riverbank. His grip wasn't solid, if Bernstein didn't hurry he'd be swept
away again with Scully's weight helping the furious current.
Bernstein tiptoed along the
slippery rocks, a long branch in his hands and huge goose egg of a bug sting
smack dab between his eyes. "Grab on to the end!" He called Skinner.
"I can't! I'll lose my grip
on her! Come down here and help me!"
"I could slip and fall
in," Bernstein argued back poking the branch toward Skinner. "I went
through hell getting out of this friggin' river once with these cuffs on, I'm
not doing it again!"
"Damn you, Bernstein! Help
me!"
"I am, grab on!"
Bernstein inched his way out a little further and slipped to the end of the
branch near Skinner's hand. "Just grab on!"
His fingers were slipping, his arm
around Scully was going numb—
He let go of the rock to grab the
branch-- and missed.
"Oh, Jesus!" Bernstein
yelped as Skinner and Scully washed away from him.
An eternity of mere seconds passed
before Skinner felt his head and shoulders jabbed repeatedly as he was shoved
into another accumulation of branches down river. The force of river water
pressed him nearly under the branches and then rolled and twisted his body
toward the soggy bank like so much flotsam. His body weak, his muscles burning
with exhaustion... he was too close to give up.
He pulled himself along the
branches until he was close enough to hoist Scully forward away from him and
against the muddy bank using her weight as an anchor, pulling himself up next
to her. He hung over her peeling wet tangled hair from her face that was pale,
checking and finding that she wasn't breathing.
"Scully..." he breathed,
his voice husky with alarm. He rolled her onto her side to clear any water
still in her mouth or throat to begin CPR. "Scully, can you hear me?"
He continued to talk to her as he worked, turning her onto her over again,
tilting her head back. "Dana, come on, sweetheart..."
"Oh, God," Bernstein
gasped as he stumbled on the scene, startled by the sight of the crisis.
Skinner was only marginally aware
of the man's presence as he began blowing his breath into Scully, delivering
even breaths, and watching for the rise and fall of her chest, speaking softly,
ardently to her. "Come on, take a breath... Take a breath, damn
it..." He pleaded and cursed in breathless whispers over her ashen lips,
water dripping from his face onto hers, his eyes boring down on her as though
he could bring her back to consciousness with his will alone.
Panic began to surge up through
him, his mind twisting with distraught thoughts. Why the hell did she jump in?
Because she was doing her job-- Why did she have to be so damn dedicated?
Three, maybe four, breaths he'd
filled her lungs with when she jerked beneath him, her arms tensing then
flailing as she gasped and coughed.
"That's it," Skinner
nearly shouted, heart swelling as he helped her turn on her side to retch away
excess water. "Get it out, that's it."
"Yes!" Bernstein
exclaimed giving a little victory shake of his cuffed hands in the air.
It was then that Skinner took full
notice of the man again, shooting him a momentary glacial glare before he came
to his feet.
"Oh..." Bernstein
hesitated only a moment, frozen with surprise as Skinner charged toward him
before he turned to run. "Shit!"
He didn't get but a few yards
before two hands clamped down on his shoulders like vice grips and spun him
around. Skinner's face was so close to his Bernstein could see himself in the
man's cold dark eyes.
"You son of bitch!"
Skinner shouted in his face shaking him by fists full of his shirt as well as a
copious quantity of skin and hair beneath the fabric.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"
Bernstein cried out averting his face away from Skinner hot breath.
"You sure the hell are!"
Skinner bellowed, "I should kick your ass but good you sorry son of a
bitch..."
"I thought you could reach it—
I didn't know— I thought it would work— It works in the movies!"
"This isn't a damn movie—"
"Hey..." Skinner broke
off glancing back at Scully; she was watching him roughing up Bernstein warily.
"I'll tell her."
Skinner looked Bernstein evenly in
the eyes. "You'll tell her what?" He hissed from between clinched
teeth.
"Tell me..." Scully
choked some, "tell me what?"
Skinner half turned to look back
at her, wordless as realization flickered in his eyes.
"Sweetheart..."
Bernstein whispered with mock seduction in Skinner's face.
***************************************
County
Road 434
Washakie
County, Wyoming
10:
28 a.m.
"Is she always this
reckless?"
Marylou looked at Mulder, his
question apparently striking an uncomfortable note with her.
"Not like this." She
answered turning back to look at the road, wringing her hands in her lap.
Mulder gripped the steering wheel
and shook his head, mouthing a curse, admonishing himself for not listening to
his instincts. Something intangible had spoken to him on that road, a whisper
out of the pre-dawn light, a word of caution. How could he have confused
innocuous mischief with an all-out commitment to causing trouble and grief?
And how the hell could she have
gone with them?
How many young woman's murders had
he been briefed about, read the reports on, been unfortunate enough to witness
the aftermath? And why, because of some foolhardy sense of immortality people seem
to walk around believing?
"Oh my god!" Mulder
reflexively jerked the steering wheel when she shouted causing the Mustang to
swerve wildly. "There, look, it's those two guys."
Marylou was pointing ahead. Mulder
could see two figures lumbering listlessly down the shoulder of the narrow
road. His mind began to reel. Where was Sally? Why were these two walking?
Where was the truck? How many side roads had there been between here and where
they had picked her up? How many brushy areas? How many bridges?
Mulder brought the car to an
abrupt halt on the heels of the two men, jumping out and rushing up to them
before either could fully react.
"Where is she?" Mulder
demanded. The two looked back at him as though dazed. He grabbed the one
closest to him, the man who had been driving earlier. "Where is
Sally?"
"Hey man, I don't know!"
"She took our truck!"
The passenger declared separating Mulder from his companion.
"Bullshit," Mulder spat
suspiciously. "I suppose you were just driving along and wham!"
"We were talkin' and drinking
beer," the passenger whined.
"We didn't try
anything." The driver declared.
"Didn't try anything."
"She's the one that was
acting all cutesy-"
"What the hell did you
do?" Mulder yelled at them, knowing that they were lying.
"Nothing! Nothing! We didn't
do anything. She told us she had a gun in her purse and made us pull over and
get out."
"A gun?" He shot a
questioning glare at Marylou.
"She doesn't have a gun,
Fox..." She told him, her eyes pinched with apprehension. "But she
has... taken cars before."
"Taken?" He repeated,
stunned.
Marylou swallowed hard. "When
someone would make her mad or piss her off... she'd get even by taking their
car..." Mulder glanced back at the Mustang and she shook her head.
"Oh, no, that really is hers."
"Ah," Mulder moaned
throwing his head back wincing up to the sky, perhaps to ask simply why or
maybe even to say a little prayer for some semblance of mercy. Question or appeal,
he was interrupted.
"Fox," Marylou said his
name again and again touched his arm. "We need to find her."
He hesitated, ready to refuse on so
many distinct levels of reasoning against just that, but stopped, seeing the
wariness in Marylou's eyes and knew this wasn't the first time she would have
had to collect her friend from a bad situation.
*************************************
Hamburger
Hamlet
Bethesda,
Maryland
12:23
p.m. EST
A little frazzled and very excited
Kimberly Cook scooted through the staggered patio tables heading for the
restaurant entrance. Near breathless she hauled open the door immediately hit
with a blast of refrigerated air from inside, her skin pulling into gooseflesh
as she hastily began to scan faces in the crowd.
"Kimmy, here!" There he
was, waving to her from a small cozy table in the bar, his smile almost
blinding in its shear perfection, like everything about him. Sometimes she just
couldn't believe it. He had model good looks, was charming and funny, and so
romantic. And that smile, oh he could just drive her to her knees with that
smile and those twinkling blue eyes.
She grinned wildly dashing to join
him.
Don't act stupid. Don't act
stupid. She repeated to herself, nervous and excited.
"Jess," she called his
name zestfully, loving the way it sounded, thrilled when others turned to see
her joining him. They were so absolutely suited for each other, and she wanted
everyone to witness just how well suited they were, how lucky and happy she
was.
"Hey, there, gorgeous,"
he laughed grabbing her up in his arms to kiss her fully on the lips. Kim
nearly swooned, feeling her knees weakening beneath her. "You look so
beautiful, more beautiful than last night." She blushed just at the
mention of last night. "But I thought you weren't going to make it,
angel."
"I'm so sorry," she
apologized covering his hands with hers. "Just one person after another
wanted something from me while I was trying to leave my office. I finally just
had to walk out. I'm so sorry. You'll forgive me?"
"It's okay," he smiled
and looked at her, his eyes dancing, "But will you have time to stay for
lunch?"
Kim waved her hand in the air,
carefree. "I think I can swing a little extra time for lunch today."
Jess cocked a light brown brow.
"Kimberly..." he said her name low, mocking suspicion, "I don't
want you getting in trouble with that boss of yours..."
She labored for seriousness,
lowering her voice as she looked deeply into his eyes and said, "Well, he’s
out of town right now. I thought I mentioned that?"
"That's right..." Jess
said, nodding his head thoughtfully.
She shrugged. "And if he
calls my voice mail will get it. I could take the rest of the day off if I
wanted to." She tossed her head, throwing her red hair back as much as its
short length would allow.
"Well, great. But he wouldn't
come back unexpectedly, would he?"
She made a raspberry sound as she
unfolded her napkin and put it across her lap. "No, I doubt it, he's in
the middle of...uh, well, he's doing something rather important. But I know
he's got to be back by Tuesday."
"Tuesday? Where is he going
to be for so long?" Jess asked while motioning for the waiter to come
over.
"Well, right now he's in
Wisconsin- Oh. No, I mean...um... somewhere in Wyoming." She laughed and
rolled her eyes slapping her head. "It's those "w" names."
Jess laughed. "You are so cute.
I could just eat you up."
Now he had said some pretty
fantastic things in the last week but that had to be about most fantastic, she
thought feeling her whole-body flush...
***************************************
Somewhere,
Wyoming
Midday...
In the stark midday sunlight, Skinner
and Scully stood out against the tall, tawny prairie grasses in their blue wind
breakers, Bernstein in his still somewhat white dress shirt and khakis dividing
them. Their clothes had dried quickly in the heat of the day but had grown
uncomfortably stiff and hot during the course of their trek across the
seemingly endless expanse of grassland.
They had been walking for only an
hour or two, heading away from the river, having decided not to return to the
car where Gryzwac could be lying in wait or easily watching the area for their
return, and already, if the knicks and scraps from the window glass hitting him
wasn't bad enough, Skinner suspected that his head was becoming sunburnt. The
resulting peeling process of a burnt scalp, he thought, wasn't in the least...
appealing. It wasn't as though he easily wore a ball cap into the office with
any degree of comfort or dignity— if he ever got back to his office alive.
He glanced at Scully briefly then
Bernstein. If any of them got back alive, he thought again.
If it was Gryzwac who had run them
off the road, and he had no reason to believe otherwise, it was unlikely that
the man was going to give up looking for them. But how in the hell had he found
them in the first place, Skinner thought angrily. Was he somehow monitoring
their cell phone usage? Or was it as simple as the monitoring of local law
enforcement bands on a scanner?
The news of federal agents
arriving at the local sheriff's department was uncommon enough to be tossed
back and forth between dispatchers and deputies, a real break in the humdrum
routine. That was one possibility, but it still didn't explain how Gryzwac and
Machenko had found where Mulder and Scully had been with Bernstein, albeit they
were late enough getting there that Scully had already left with Bernstein.
There was only one explanation left. There was an information leak within the
bureau.
Scully fanned away one of the many
insects buzzing around in the knee-high grass, feeling ironically thirsty
despite the fact that she had nearly drowned not but a few hours before.
She would have too, she thought
stealing a glimpse of Skinner who was walking a few paces ahead of Bernstein.
She would have drowned if it hadn't been for him. She couldn’t remember a great
deal of what happened, flashes and impressions mostly, which was probably for
the best. She’d dealt with terrorizing memories of drowning once before; she
didn't need to struggle to bury a whole new set of bad memories and sensations;
the panic and taste of fear that no child should ever have to experience.
Her brothers had gone in, and it
had looked so easy- so simple, and so she had gone in, too. There was no
thought given by a four-year-old to the fact that she had never swum before. For
an eternity it seemed, there was blackness and an inviting gurgle of water
grasping her until a sudden light hit her eyes as her father yanked her up from
below the surface of Chatchom’s pond.
"Starbuck!" She recalled
the loud, domineering voice. Anger and fear tangled together as he called to
her. "What were you thinking, sweetheart—"
No, wait, Scully stopped to think.
Her father had never called her
that, ever. Sweetheart? Where had she gotten that phrase? She pondered the
obscure reference rearing up from apparently nowhere until Bernstein broke her
chain of thought.
"Just what the hell are we
doing?" He blasted. "Are we going to walk to Washington D.C.?"
Neither Skinner nor Scully
responded.
"Do either of you have the
slightest clue where we're going here?" He whined hobbling along as though
he'd been walking for days on blistered feet.
"Hell," Scully finally
broke her silence able to take no more of the man's bellyaching. "And
we're taking you with us."
"Ah, Ariel speaks
again!" Bernstein mocked surprise throwing his hands up in a
hallelujah-like gesture. Again, like the first three or four times, Scully
ignored the Little Mermaid reference.
Amazed, she glanced at Skinner,
not knowing how he had recovered his composure so successfully after
practically throttling Bernstein on the riverbank, nor how he had maintained it
so well considering the situation. Herself, aside from having nearly drowned,
clothes stiff and hot, hair matted, sinuses aching and burning, nauseated from
too much water taken in, gun lost, cell phone waterlogged, and a nail broken
into the quick... she wasn't in much of a mood.
"My feet are killing
me." He whined again.
"Deal with it," she told
him. "You're not the first man who’s had to walk across these prairies,
you know?"
"I know. I know," he
replied craning his head around to look at her, allowing her an unobstructed
view of the still huge insect sting right between his brows. "I also know
I'm not some savage Indian or a roughneck frontiersman— I'm a regular guy whose
shoes are killing him. I'm going to have to see a podiatrist."
"Take your shoes off."
Skinner recommended.
"Take them off?"
Bernstein gasped.
"For thousands of years men
ran barefoot through these grasses, I think you could manage it for a few
hours." Scully assured him with half-baked seriousness.
"A few hours? Have you looked
around? "He asked making a sweeping gesture of his cuffed hands.
"More like a few days of walking. There's nothing in site for miles except
for more and more of this!" He kicked at the grass, looking awkward and
nearly losing his balance in the process.
Skinner and Scully traded glances,
amused. She then hesitated to look down at something she'd stepped on. Skinner
stopped as well, watching her bend to inspect something on the ground, letting
Bernstein wonder ahead on his own, he wouldn't get far from sight out here in
the open. She stood with something small and dark pinched between her fingers.
She gave him an amused half smile holding the object up to show him.
"An arrowhead." She
announced and laughed quietly.
He watched her examine her
unusually timed discovery for a moment, captured by the delicate way she turned
the object in her fingers and childlike glow of amusement that brushed her lips
with a whisper of a smile... Watching her for that moment, he was incredibly taken
by this woman.
"So, Sgt. Bilko,"
Bernstein called back to Skinner as he loped along, "what is the
plan?"
Skinner flicked a glance his way,
setting his jaw.
"It can't be much of a
plan," Bernstein said before there could be any response. "No car. No
phone. And no idea of where we ar-uhhh!"
"I think we've got a pretty
good idea now," Scully muttered as she watched Bernstein's chaotic display
of gestures spent to free himself from a broken barbed wire fence. "We're
on someone's property."
The two agents started walking
toward Bernstein at a leisurely pace seeing no great need to hurry to his
rescue.
"A ranch more than
likely," Skinner offered scanning the area, repositioning his glasses.
He'd done this several times
Scully had noticed, and she didn't believe the frames had fared very well after
their travels down the river nestled in his pocket. She had been truly amazed
that they weren't broken when she saw him retrieve from his shirt pocket
earlier.
Bernstein angrily snorted from
where he was now sitting on the ground, hopelessly entangled in the loose barb
wire. Jerking his arms up to inspect the elbow of his left sleeve he wrinkled
his nose and flared his nostrils at the deep brown muck he found stuck there.
"Ock! Oh! Ock!" He
gagged swinging his arms away from himself.
Scully pulled her lips inward
biting at them hard not to laugh aloud.
In defiance of his pained
expression Skinner's eyes seemed to dance with gratification.
"A cattle ranch,
apparently." Scully added at last.
***********************************
Ten
Sleep, Wyoming
1:34
p.m.
"There," Jink exclaimed
leaning over the back seat throwing his arm over Mulder's shoulder pointing
toward ahead at something on the side of the road. "I see my truck."
"Where?" Mulder asked
him, flicking his eyes back and forth between the road and the rear-view
mirror.
"I see it, too," Harley
agreed also sitting forward against the back of Marylou's seat.
"The restaurant," Marylou
directed Mulder's attention to the building tucked in between an intensely busy
truck stop and a chain motel.
He scanned the parking lot of the
small restaurant slowing to pull in, wondering how the hell these two could
have picked their truck out of the multitude of rusted, beat-up pickups filling
the lot. "Are you sure?"
"I'm sure," Jink
hollered back, "I can already see the gash I put in the rear fender when I
backed into my dad's bull."
Mulder nodded. "Of course,
how stupid of me." He muttered cranking the wheel into a left turn off the
highway.
While he waited for a parking
space as another truck pulled out the two men got out and started over to their
truck, checking it out and yelling back and forth about beer then cigarettes. Marylou
had followed them halfway to the truck before she stopped and just stood in the
middle of the driveway until Mulder parked and got out of the car.
"What are you doing?" he
asked her, coming around the back of the Mustang.
"I don't know." She
shrugged watching the two men search for what was apparently their last pack of
cigarettes in the truck.
"Come on and let's look
inside for her." Mulder urged her wondering why the hesitation suddenly.
Hit by the loud clank of plates
and flatware, pool balls slapping together, and the tinkle of some country
lament, Mulder and Marylou approached the small register counter seeing that
restaurant was teeming with activity. Constructed of bare wood, the walls
covered with framed photos of locals in slice-of-life type poses. There was a
small counter up front with a bowl of toothpicks mixed in with mints, beside it
stood an ancient looking Tempest video game, next to that a row of candy
machines boasting a nickel price tag on each.
Mulder and Marylou stretched their
necks in alternating directions searching the booths and tables for Sally,
Mulder keeping an eye on Jink and Harley still out in the parking lot, hoping
they would just take off after they found their pack of smokes, but he had a
bad feeling once they got their nicotine fix they would be looking for a
certain young woman.
Marylou grabbed Mulder’s arm
suddenly dragging him forward into the dining room. "I see her."
In a booth near the back of the
dining room Sally sat with her back to the rest of the patrons, apparently the
entire contents of her purse spread out over the table, a mug of coffee
carefully placed at the center like an altar piece. She was still digging more
things out of her purse when they stepped up to booth.
She looked up at Marylou and
Mulder, her lips pinched together hard.
"What's a screwed-up girl
like you doing in a nice place like this?" Mulder said before he could
stop himself.
"Great!" Sally spat and
threw a handful of gum wrappers on the table.
Glaring at him Marylou ground her
elbow into Mulder's ribs hard, nearly knocking the wind from him. "Shut
up!" She told him between a whisper and a shout before taking a seat in
the booth across from her friend. She eyed the mixture of garbage and
necessities across the table for a second or two before asking Sally quietly,
"what are you looking for?"
She appeared to ignore the
question continuing to dig in her purse, only stopping briefly to watch Mulder sit
down next to Marylou, then tossed a tampon with a torn, wrinkled wrapped onto
the table in his direction.
"Hon, those two fellas you
took the truck from are in the parking lot." Marylou told her friend, keeping
her voice carefully neutral.
Sally tossed a battered toothbrush
missing more than a few bristles from its head onto the table and glanced
toward the front windows. "And?" She said turning back.
"Well, as soon as they find
their cigarettes," Mulder began, smirking, "they're probably going to
come in here looking for you, if they don't call a cop first."
She huffed, laboring with a false
smile. "They won't be finding their cigarettes." She said and threw a
pack of Menthols on the table.
Mulder took a deep breath,
steadying his voice. "Listen," he said sitting forward, "there
are obviously some unresolved issues on your plate but I'm just not hungry
enough to eat that bullshit right now."
Marylou started to say something,
but he silenced her holding a finger up. "Now we can get out of here
before those two good ol' boys come rambling in here with the local fuzz, you
two go your way and I'll go mine, or I can get up and walk out of here and
never look back as they drag your sour little ass off kicking and screaming to
the county jail."
Sally glared at him. "What's
your deal?" she asked squinting her eyes as though trying to figure out
the answer at the same time she asked it. "Just go call your partner and boss
and leave me alone."
"Please," Marylou pleaded
with her. "He's trying to help."
"Why?" She shrugged her
shoulders. "You're basically a cop yourself, why don't you just take me
into custody and turn me over to the locals?"
"Do you know how lucky you
are?" Mulder said perhaps too loudly, turning heads from the nearby tables
and booths. He lowered his voice, "do you know how many pretty young women
I've seen dead in a ditch or shallow grave because they thought they were
untouchable and took that ride. Those two could have beat the hell out of you,
raped you, dismembered your body and sprinkled your remains all over the damn
state. Or worse, they could have kept you captive, tortured you blind until
they'd had enough fun then left you to waste away and die in your own
excrement."
"My God," Sally breathed
squinting at him, "you're a real asshole."
He shook his head. "Come on,
Marylou," he said taking her hand and getting up from the booth.
"You're not involve in this, let's get out of here."
"No, wait," she
resisted, pulling her hand from his. She turned to Sally urgently, tears
starting to well up in her eyes. "Please don't screw everything up again,
this was supposed to be a fun weekend. It's not even the fourth yet."
"Oh well, shit," Sally
declared beginning to shovel stuff from the table back into her purse
carelessly. "I wouldn't want to screw everything up again. Heaven forbid.
You know I didn't want to pick him up in the first place, you practically
begged me to pick him..."
"If you're gathering up all
that crap because you've decided to leave," Mulder interrupted her,
sounding urgent, looking toward the front windows. "I suggest you
hurry."
Marylou and Sally looked back
seeing Jink and Harley heading toward the restaurant, appearing highly excited
with their mouths running back and forth to one another.
"Well shit." Sally
muttered indifferently.
"Come on, hurry," Marylou
urged her beginning to gather up handfuls of junk from the table to shove in
her purse.
"All right, all right...
Jesus, be careful."
Jink and Harley were at the front
door now.
"Forget it," Mulder said
ushering them out of the booth, eyes on the two men. "Let's go."
"How the hell are we going to
leave, they're right there at the exit." Sally complained.
"Where there's will there's
an open door."
In a hustled sort of stroll,
trying to look casual, the three of them headed toward the restaurant kitchen,
Mulder leading them. Jink and Harley were at the front counter, asking the
waitress working the register questions and scanning the dining room, game room
and bar.
"Hey!"
Mulder turned his head back,
seeing Harley approaching from across the room. "Just keep going," he
told Marylou and turned back to meet Harley, preoccupying his attention in some
way. Twirling something shiny in front of him was a brief consideration.
"Where the hell are you three
going?" He demanded from Mulder.
"When you gotta go, you gotta
go," Mulder laughed. "Bathrooms. We were just heading to the
bathroom." He glanced around behind the man looking for the other who was nowhere
to be seen. "Where's Jinx, or was it Pixie?"
"Jink. And he went to keep an
eye on your car," Harley poked at Mulder. "We don't want anyone
leaving here before the police get here."
Mulder nodded stiffly, his mind
working hard on the problem. "That's smart thinking," he complimented
the man pulling his id case from his pocket, "but you know what, I've got
this under control." He flashed his badge and ID at the man. "I'm a
federal agent."
The man blinked at him.
"Yeah? So what?"
So much for stunning him with
that, Mulder thought grimacing. He nodded thoughtfully, placing his hand on
Harley's shoulder, turning him as he spoke carefully. "Exactly, see I'm
under cover..."
"In that suit?"
Shit. "You've got a sharp
eye." Mulder laughed and it was hollow. "I bet you've already figured
out which one of these people in here is the contact."
"Huh? Contact?" The man
dumbly said abruptly searching faces in the dining room.
"Shhh, don't let him know you
know who he is."
"Oh, sorry, right," he
agreed, confused, and frowning as he took another long obvious sweeping glance
at the patrons.
"I have to apologize to both
you and Jink about my assistant's impulsive behavior," Mulder continued
his story, praying to the goblins of spontaneity for all their help as he
guilefully maneuvered Harley toward the front door. "When we got that flat
and she knew how important it was that someone be here to meet our contact, she
took the ride with you fellas."
"But she said..."
Mulder nodded breaking his
sentence, "I know, she took your truck but only because she didn't want to
break our cover story." He leaned against the front door leading Harley
out, saying, "Sally is very dedicated."
"Hey! Hey! Damn it!"
Harley and Mulder froze.
Jink was half jumping, half
running across the parking lot kicking up whiffs of dust as he went after Marylou
who was running away from the Mustang covering her head. Mulder gasped patting
his pants pockets— he had the keys!
"Leave her alone!" Sally
came screaming from between two parked trucks swinging her huge purse at Jink.
"Son of a bitch!" Harley
cursed firing a hot scowl at Mulder before he bolted into the parking lot to
help his friend.
Mulder sprinted for the Mustang
digging the keys out from his pocket, seeing chaos of the Dukes of Hazard
caliber descending upon the parking lot; Marylou squealing away from first Jink
then Harley as Sally beat Jink about the head and shoulders with a bag that had
to weigh fifteen pounds, dust flying everywhere. The only components to
complete the farce were a fat guy in a white suit and some smokin' banjo music.
Mulder jumped in the car and got
it started, racing the engine a little too hard, catching Harley's attention.
He shifted in his pursuit of Marylou and started for the Mustang. Mulder shot
out of the parking space fast, nearly hitting Harley. The man slammed his hands
down on the trunk lid, yelling something Mulder couldn't understand but knew
was probably not friendly.
Cranking the steering wheel wildly
with one hand and shifting like a stock car driver with the other, Mulder got
turned around and headed toward the exit where Sally had forced Jink nearly
into the highway with her handbag assault. Marylou had stopped and was crying
compulsively in the middle of the parking lot.
"Get in!" Mulder shouted
at her braking hard next to her.
In the seconds, her fumbling of
the door handle afforded him Mulder checked the rear-view mirrors. Harley was
coming up hot on their tail, and beyond his irate expression Mulder could see
the restaurant patrons had flocked to the windows and front door to watch the
spectacle.
Marylou screamed when she saw
Harley. She got the door open and fell into the front seat. Mulder didn't wait
for her to shut the door. He punched the gas just as Harley made a mad swing
for the trunk lid causing him to fall as the car moved from under his grasp.
Seeing the Mustang heading her way,
Sally withdrew her handbag only to haul off and kick Jink in the crouch before
she made a break for the open car door to jump in.
The Mustang fish-tailed out of the
parking lot onto the highway leaving Jink and Harley in a pale cloud of dust.
*******************************
Roy's
PDQ Mart
Dove
Tail, Wyoming
2:46
p.m.
"Wouldn't ya' like to be a
peppa', too?" Opening the refrigerator case, he laughed as softly to himself
as he had been singing the soda jingle.
He plucked a soda bottle from the
case and opened it on the spot, drinking half of it before his cell phone rang,
interrupting about the only moment of serenity he'd had today.
"Yeah," he answered
wiping sticky soda from the corners of his mouth. "Oh, really? Well, you
know something, that's yesterday's news, you stupid son-of-a-bitch!"
Gryzwac barked back to the person on the other end of the line walking toward
the checkout counter.
"I already knew that, and do
you know why I already knew that?" He set the open soda on the counter and
dug out his money clip as the purchase was rung up, the man running the
register stealing nervous glances too often not to be anything but obvious.
"Well, for one thing, I
didn't need your happy mother fuckin ass to tell me— you hear me. I don't wait
'til the eleventh hour to get the job done then half-ass it up— No, I don't
even want to hear your excuses. You have no idea what I've got to deal with
here— No, I've got a scanner, and it's doing your job just dandy. A police
scanner, you dumb... Yeah, exactly, so I've got to listen to these hayseed hick
fuckers non-stop to find out what Royce's good money is going in your faggot
pocket for— No, I'll make sure Royce hears about this."
Gryzwac snapped the phone off,
puffing hard.
After a moment he looked at the
man behind the counter, his mouth gone slack with a weak smile, his eyes
glazed. "Guess that fella didn't do a very good job, huh?" he
remarked, laughing nervously.
"Yeah," Gryzwac grunted
cocking his head, "now give me my fuckin change!"
**************************************
J.
Edgar Hoover Building
Washington,
D.C.
3:46
p.m. EST
"AD Skinner's office,"
Kim Cook answered the phone flinching at the sound of her own harried tone.
Everything had gone haywire since
she got back from lunch, and she could have kicked herself because it was her
fault, at least in some part. If she hadn't had been so impatient, so giddy to
meet with Jess for lunch then she would have got the call, yet she would have
probably had to cancel with Jess then... So maybe it was better that she'd run
out ignoring the ring of the phone before lunch. She winced, reprimanding
herself for the selfish thought.
"Kim, this is Agent Mulder,
I've been unable to reach either AD Skinner or Agent Scully-"
"No one can reach them,"
she said abruptly before he could finish.
"What do you mean no one?
What's happened?"
"I talked to the Assistant
Director this morning and made arrangements for him and Agent Scully to pick up
the information you had sent here at the Albany County Sheriff's department,
but they haven't made it there yet and neither of them can be reached on their
cell phones."
"How overdue are they?" he
asked, as another head popped in the door of the outer office.
It was Director Stroud's
assistant. "Any word?" She whispered ignoring Kim motioning for
silence while on the phone.
Kim shook her head then rubbed her
temples hard. "Several hours. The Albany County Sheriff has begun a search
along the route they were believed to be traveling."
"I need the number for that
Sheriff's department, Kim."
"I've got it right
here..."
*************************************
A
Tasty Freeze
Long
Switch, Wyoming
3:37
p.m. MST
Mulder came away from the phone
booth quickly, tense. Marylou was almost afraid to ask what the matter was. He
had been using the phone for a very long time, making several calls, and
writing things down hurriedly on the paper he'd gotten from her. Would she and
Sally be going to jail after all? Could he not do anything to help? Would the
local authorities not be swayed by his unique and charming power of persuasion?
"It's not good is it?"
She asked him, shaking her head, her arms crossed over her chest tightly.
"They're going to take us to jail, aren't they?"
Hearing this Sally brought her
head up from the seat where she'd been trying to doze.
Mulder looked up distractedly from
the scrap of paper he'd written a great deal of information on while he was
talking on the phone. He seemed confused by what she was saying.
"Uh, no." He told the
two of them, going around to car trunk. "No, not at all. In fact, it looks
like Jink and Harley are the ones who may be arrested."
"What?" Sally said
getting out of the car, intensely curious about this development.
"Uh, several people at the
restaurant apparently called the police stating that Jink and Harley were
harassing some patrons and chased them from the property. I didn't get much out
in the way of an explanation before they realized we were the patrons
involved." He smiled, squinting hard against the afternoon sun.
"You're off the hook."
"Woo-hoo!" Sally hooted
slapping high five with Marylou.
"Thank you, thank you, thank
you." Marylou sang running to Mulder throwing her arms around his neck.
He laughed. "No
problem," he told her withdrawing from her strangle hold of an embrace.
"But something's wrong, isn't
it?" Sally intuitively questioned him leaning against the fender.
He looked at her thoughtfully. The
tension between them seemed to be fading.
"I can't reach my partner or
my superior who she's with," he answered, popping the trunk open.
"Actually no one has seen them or been able to reach them since this
morning." Neither of the women seemed to know how to respond. Neither did
Mulder. "I need to go help look for them."
Sally sighed and crossed her arms
over her chest, lifting a single dark brow. "Where do you need to get to
now?"
"Don't worry, I'm getting a
ride." He smiled thin lipped and pointed over her shoulder at the
Sheriff's cruiser rolling into the parking lot of the Tasty Freeze. "Good
timing, huh?"
"Couldn't have written it
better," she replied with a tilt of her head, her brow arched.
Mulder looked at Marylou. She
looked like she was about to cry again, and he felt guilty. He'd known the two
of them less than twelve hours but felt as though it was a lifetime. He was
going to remember these two... My God, how could he forget, he questioned himself.
"Bye." Marylou said and
made a small wave like a little girl, her big dark eyes, and lashes moistening.
"Promise me you two will stay
out of trouble." He said retrieving his bag from the trunk.
"Sure thing," Sally
assured him, but he didn't feel very assured.
"Take care of yourselves."
He shut the trunk and started for the cruiser.
"Aren't you gonna' give her a
kiss good-bye or anything?"
Mulder froze. "Huh?"
Sally jerked her thumb in Marylou's
direction. "She's so infatuated with you it's making me sick that you
can't see it."
Marylou gasped, making a sound as
though someone had knocked the wind from her, and threw one hand over her eyes
and the other over her heart, devastated by Sally’s outing.
"You live in an interesting
world, Sally." Mulder remarked. "Judging by what I've seen and heard
in just the few hours that I've known the two of you, my mind reels at the
possibilities and repercussions of knowing you any longer."
"I'll take that as a
compliment." Sally smiled.
Mulder smiled and set his bag down
to pull his ID case out of his jacket, quickly retrieving a card that he took
to Marylou. "Hold onto this." He said giving her his business card.
She nodded finding it hard to look directly at him. "Be good." He
whispered and kissed her cheek.
"I will." She sniffed
watching him walk for the cruiser again. "You, too."
*****************************************
Somewhere,
Wyoming
The sun had dipped in the sky and
shadows were growing long as the day approached its close. And although the
light quality across the land had changed the sky remained a brilliant blue
contrasted by cottony white puffs of cloud that seemed to stand perfectly
still, as if painted in place.
The vista was so overwhelming,
Scully thought as she studied the great expanse of azure, unconditionally
breathtaking. No wonder there was such romanticism attached to the western half
of the United States, one couldn't help but feel inspired and captured by the
bold distinction of the land not to mention the rich history that had unfolded
across it.
And yes, that was all well and
good, but putting aside the awe and wonderment the bare fact still remained—
she had been walking a very long time across an all too unpopulated patch of
earth. How long, she wondered glancing at her watch only to remember it had
stopped working. So much for waterproof.
Chalking up her watch as one more
item on her list of things to repair or replace thanks to this assignment she
closed the gap between herself and Skinner. "What's the time?" she
asked him quietly.
"Late for an
appointment?" Bernstein snorted as Skinner checked his wristwatch.
"A quarter to seven," he
answered ignoring Bernstein.
She nodded looking disappointed;
it was getting very late, and it was beginning to look as though they'd be
sleeping alfresco for the night.
"Hmm," she murmured to
no one in particular, "definitely not a dead monotonous period under a
roof tonight I'm afraid."
Skinner served her with a curious
side long glance. She smiled, a little embarrassed and feeling obligated to
explain herself. "Travels with a Donkey, by Stevenson, whose justification
for sleeping outside is one that describes those who sleep inside experiencing
only a blank uneventful slumber while the man who sleeps afield bears witness
to the splendor of nature transforming throughout the night."
He looked at her thoughtfully, and
after a moment cynically stated, "sounds like he didn't do much sleeping
outside."
Scully pressed her mouth closed
against an unbidden laugh. "I don't know."
"Well, I'm glad you're
finding this predicament we're in so amusing," Bernstein scolded them.
"I'm personally not finding a damn thing funny about the aspect of
sleeping out in the open."
"You'll change your mind once
you've snuggled up next to one of these cows," Skinner nearly smirked.
Scully noticed the slight curl
tugging at the corner of his mouth and knew he was as tired and punchy as she
was feeling. To hide her smile, she turned away from him, making a sweeping
glance around at the cows languidly grazing throughout the area, some mere
patches of color in the distance.
They had passed a number of them
along their hike, some leisurely stamping back and forth through broken fencing
downed by either the previous night's storm or cattle spooked by the storm, but
most were clustered together in whatever shade they could find.
Shade, though, seemed be becoming
more readily available as the landscape grew hillier and prominently spotted
with brush and shrubs, small cropping of trees, looking more and more like a
Remington painting sans the characters or horses.
"You speak like a man of
experience, Bilko." Bernstein threw back the lame reference.
Regardless of Bernstein's
discourteousness there was an underlying truth to his statement. Scully thought
about it for a moment, there had been a change, almost imperceptible, but there
just the same, in the way Skinner carried himself over the last few hours. She
sensed it but until now had not been able to label his air of familiarity with
this element.
Scully knew so little about Skinner’s
background, where he was from or grew up. Could he have lived in an area like
this, she wondered. Or was his ease perhaps the same sense of occidental
sentimentalism she'd been thinking of, a sense of freedom within simpler
boundaries lessening the steady stress and strain of life?
"I do," Skinner agreed
with Bernstein, giving Scully a start. Had she assumed correctly? "Walking
up wind of you for so long now, I just thought you'd feel more at home with
others that smelt just as bad as you do."
Okay, maybe not, she realized.
There was something there she discovered, the dwindling rays of sunlight
glinting off a smooth surface.
"There's something over
there," she announced pointing.
Both Skinner and Bernstein
followed the length of her arm and finger seeing the same glint of light.
"What is that?"
Bernstein questioned bending and twisting to get a better look. "It looks
like a..."
"An RV." Skinner
finished Bernstein's statement.
Continued in part 5
