Читать книгу Selectively Lawless - Asa Dunnington - Страница 10

Chapter 2

On the ride to San Diego, Emmett flipped through a magazine he’d picked up at the bus station. He wasn’t that big of a reader until later in life, when he began to study the Bible, but a kindly porter had noticed him pacing while he waited for the bus to arrive and suggested he might want something to occupy his mind for the long trip ahead.

Emmett had to admit he was feeling a little anxious. He was never the sort to enjoy being cooped up for very long—something that would lead to a particularly humorous conversation some years later, when he was sentenced to Leavenworth federal prison and the guards had to continually remind him to keep his cell door closed after the evening meal.

The inmates were locked in at night, of course, but during their limited free time, they were allowed to come and go with permission, as long as they closed the cell doors when they were in their bunks and had no behavioral problems.

This was for their own protection as much as anything else, since inmates were known to have conflicts from time to time. Emmett was written up several times for leaving the door of his cell open while he napped.

“How can you sleep when somebody could sneak in there with murder on their mind?” the warden asked after hearing of his habit.

“Never met a man who scared me,” Emmett answered, “but take away my freedom, and that’s another matter.”

The warden laughed. “But Emmett, you’re in prison!”

“Maybe so, but I don’t have to act like it.”

Emmett thanked the man at the bus station and picked up a magazine almost at random. He waited until he was on the bus to take a better look at his purchase.

As he leafed through the pages, a particularly striking ad caught his eye. The bright red and orange colors reminded him of Oklahoma sunsets, but even more exciting to Emmett was a picture of a motorcycle and its description:

The New Indian Scout

Power! Stamina! Swiftness!

Emmett could relate to that.

If you want a mount that idles smoothly, easily, like a high-powered motorcar . . .

That gave Emmett pause. Maybe he could return home with a fistful of cash and a brand-new Indian.

. . . a machine that shoots away like the wind on an open stretch . . .

It almost sounded like one of the mustangs he’d been breaking since he was eight years old.

. . . rides as comfortably as a Pullman . . . takes the roughest roads without a murmur and the roughest use without a sign of wear . . .

That almost sounded better than a horse.

. . . then yours is the new Indian Scout 45! Go to an Indian dealer and climb aboard for a trial run and get ready for the thrill of your life!

That settled it. Everything in that ad appealed to a sixteen-year-old with money in his pocket and a hankering for adventure. Emmett couldn’t wait to get to San Diego and buy himself an Indian.

As soon as he arrived in San Diego, Emmett checked into a hotel not far from the beach. It was an incredible thing to feel the Pacific breeze through the open window and smell the ocean a block or two away. He loved the plains, but he could see the allure of the coast as well.

Emmett went downstairs, and the desk clerk told him there was an Indian dealer within walking distance, which he took as a good sign. He rushed right over and stopped when he saw the motorcycle in the window, exactly as it looked in the magazine.

The salesman’s eyes lit up when he saw the excited young man staring at the brand new Indian Scout, so he went over to introduce himself.

“Side-valve V-twin, six hundred and six cc displacement.”

Emmett looked up at the salesman, who was grinning from ear to ear. He obviously had seen the advertisement Emmett had torn from the magazine and was still holding in his hand. Emmett calmly pocketed the page and waited for the rest of the sales pitch.

“Transmission’s bolted right to the engine case, you know.”

“That right?”

“Less rattle. Bert Roosevelt, no relation, I’m sorry to say, and this here motorized vehicle will move faster than goose crap through a cane break. It’s a go-getting, wear-defying, record-setting machine you have to feel to believe, and I just know a man like you would want to climb on top and feel that power. What’d you say your name was?”

Emmett took Bert’s outstretched hand. “Emmett Long.”

“Well, Emmett, are you a man with a little money to spend?”

“I got me a little bit.”

“How about a test ride?”

Emmett smiled. “Read my mind, Bert.”

“I’ll get us a couple of helmets.”

When Bert returned with the headgear, Emmett was already astride the Indian. “I better sit in front, Emmett.”

Emmett took off his Stetson and handed it to Bert, who shrugged and put it back inside the office. While he was inside, he heard Emmett start the motorcycle.

Bert rushed outside, and Emmett had already put on his helmet and was motioning the salesman to hop on the back. “Ever ride one of these?” Bert asked, but Emmett revved the engine and shook his head as if he couldn’t hear the question.

“Let’s go, Bert!” he yelled.

Emmett looked as if he were going to take off without him, so Bert quickly put on his helmet and climbed on the back.

As soon as Bert’s backside hit the seat, Emmett took off like a bat out of hell, expertly navigating into traffic as Bert hung on for dear life.

“Take a left turn at the corner!” Bert screamed, but Emmett had other ideas. He sped up and swung wide around a slow-moving tin lizzie, then roared to the right, toward the ocean.

He’d been in such a hurry to find the motorcycle dealer that he hadn’t even seen the water yet.

“I said left!” Bert screamed, and Emmett just nodded.

“Right!”

Emmett sped through traffic, weaving in and out of the slower-moving automobiles. Bert continued to hang on, screaming into the wind and trying desperately to get Emmett to slow down, but Emmett pretended not to hear. Emmett was having too good a time to pay attention to the man in the back.

Just as they crested a hill and the bright-blue expanse of the Pacific came into view, the sun’s reflection nearly blinding, an old Model A lurched into the street from an alleyway right in front of them.

Emmett swerved into opposing traffic to avoid the collision, then hopped a curb, briefly terrorizing several pedestrians before managing to find his way back to the street in a gap between moving vehicles just as the road arrived at a cross-street dead end at the water’s edge.

Emmett pulled to the side of the road and killed the engine, looking out at the wondrous Pacific Ocean for the very first time. He took off his helmet and just watched the waves for a couple of minutes before realizing his passenger had gone completely quiet.

“You can turn loose now, Bert,” he said.

Bert looked down and realized he still had his arms around Emmett’s waist. He peeled his hands apart and got off the Scout, his legs wobbly. “Guess you’ve driven one of these before.”

Emmett shook his head. “First time.”

Once they were back at the dealership, the negotiations went fairly smoothly. Emmett’s wild ride seemed to have taken all the fight out of the salesman, and the result was a pretty good deal on the price.

After the transaction was complete, Emmett shook hands with Bert, put on his Stetson, and climbed back on the motorcycle. “How fast did you say this thing goes?”

Emmett started the engine before Bert could answer and took off like a shot, leaving the salesman slack jawed and relieved he wasn’t going along for the ride.

Over the next week, Emmett rode down to the beach every day and swam in the ocean and ate Mexican food and explored Old Town San Diego, but he was eager to get back to his original plan, so he soon got packed and hit the road.

His plan was to head up the coast to Seattle on his brand-new motorcycle.

Which was not as free and easy as it sounds. This was before the construction of the Pacific Coast Highway, which would also be known as US 1, so the roads and byways along the way varied widely in quality and ease of passage. The trip took him several weeks, and by the time he crossed into Washington state, he was so beat up from the trip he couldn’t wait to sell the Indian.

Emmett had spent many a day driving cattle and many a night sleeping on the ground. He’d broken mustangs and even ridden a bull or two, but his tailbone had never ached as much as it did at the end of that long trek up the Pacific coast.

In spite of the rough ride, though, he’d kept the motorcycle in good shape, and he got almost as much as he’d paid for it brand new. Good old Bert Roosevelt.

Once he’d sold the motorcycle, Emmett enrolled in barber school just long enough to become reasonably proficient, not because he wanted to actually make a living at cutting hair but because if there was one thing the logging camps throughout the region needed, it was a good barber.

And if there was one thing the camps had in abundance, it was men with ready cash in their pockets.

Emmett had no trouble at all finding a logging camp with need of his services, and he quickly contracted with the general manager to set up shop.

The loggers worked long and hard all week, and by the time the weekend arrived, they were ready to cut loose and have a good time—maybe go into town and look for girls and play a little poker on their return. So, they all wanted haircuts on Friday night, which Emmett was happy to provide. He also got himself invited to their poker games.

His situation was the same as at the ranch, only this time, he didn’t actually have to work besides his barber duties, so he liked it a lot better.

Eventually, just like at the Mackey ranch, the men ran out of money to lose, and it was time once again to move on. Emmett packed up and headed to the next camp, where he cut more hair and siphoned up more wages. He kept this up until he’d basically cleaned out every logger in the Pacific Northwest, with none of them the wiser.

He figured eventually some of the loggers would either connect in town or exchange stories as they left one camp’s employ for another, so he was satisfied that he’d made all the money he could as a “barber,” at least for the time being.

Plus, there was that little promise he’d made to Carmen the day he left home over a year before.

Emmett went to the nearest town, found a Buick dealership, and told the salesman he wanted the sporty two-door Roadster in the middle of the showroom floor.

“Let’s go see what we have in stock,” the salesman said.

“Don’t bother with any of that,” Emmett told him. “I’ll take this one.”

“Actually, that one’s sold. Fella’s coming in this afternoon. But we have others ’round back.”

Emmett reached into his pocket, pulled out a wad of bills big enough to choke a logger, and fanned out several thousand dollars. “What time did you say that other fella’s comin’?”

The salesman looked down at the cash and then back up at Emmett. “What fella?”

Emmett just smiled.

Less than ten minutes later, he drove off the lot in his brand-new 1921 Buick Roadster with a canvas top and a fire-engine-red paint job that he knew his brothers would see from at least a half mile away as they hunkered down in the fields, picking cotton under the blazing southern sun.

He was smiling all the way back to Oklahoma.