Read Online Shackles by Bill Pronzini - Free Book Online
Authors: Bill Pronzini
Tags: Fiction
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memory, and memory distorts time. There are a few things I’m sure took place just that many years back; others might have been thirteen or twelve or fourteen or fifteen. And of the ones I’m sure of, I can’t pick out any one person that he might be, any motive strong enough for this kind of revenge.
What else could thirteen represent, if not years? An occurrence on the thirteenth of the month—the thirteenth of December, maybe? If he’d snatched me on the thirteenth of this month, then yes, that might be it. But he hadn’t. He’d made his grab on December 4—Friday, December 4. Some sort of correlation between four and thirteen? No, that’s reaching too far.
Look at it another way: Why
did
he pick December 4? Why not December 3, or December 5 or any other damn day? Could have been nothing more than random selection—the day he was ready, when all his preparations were made. But it could also be that there’s an underlying meaning to the date too. Something that happened on December 4 thirteen years ago? Possible. But if I can’t be sure entire cases took place in a given year, how the hell can I remember something that might have happened on a specific date that long ago?
Thirteen. Thirteen. A superstitious symbol, an unlucky number for some and lucky one for others. Suppose it’s a lucky one for him? The thirteen weeks might not have any meaning beyond that. I might be trying to make too much out of it, stumbling around in a blind alley….
Let it go for now. The thirteen weeks means something or it doesn’t, and if it does I’ll figure it out eventually. That’s the way my mind has always worked. Let it alone, let it simmer on a back burner and one day it all comes boiling up to the surface.
Gnawing in my belly—it’s time to eat. Spam. I used to hate Spam when I was a kid; I haven’t eaten it in twenty years or more. But I looked at a can while I was making coffee this morning, and it started my mouth watering. Funny.
Why should I crave Spam after all these years, in a place and a situation like this?
----
The Fifth Day
----
Good weather this morning. Blue sky, sunlight slanting in through the window at an oblique angle. I stood at the window for a long time, watching the sun sparkle on the snowdrifts and the snow-heavy tree branches and the icicles hanging from the near eaves of the shed roof. Snow looks so clean and fresh with the sun on it; everything looks clean and fresh, untouched, unsullied, and it gives you hope. Not that I’m losing hope. No. But with the day bright like this, so clean-looking, the loneliness is a little easier to handle and I don’t have to work so hard to keep my spirits up, to keep on believing.
I fiddled with the radio again while I was at the window and had better luck. The honky-tonk station came in for a visit and hasn’t left yet, at least not for more than a few minutes at a time. It’s staticky and it keeps fluctuating, but it’s audible enough.
Station KHOT, out of Stockton. That gives me some idea of where I am. A Stockton country station doesn’t figure to have all that much range, so that puts this cabin somewhere in the Sierras to the east of Stockton. Yosemite’s to the southeast; so are clusters of little Mother Lode towns and ski resorts. Doesn’t figure he’d have taken me down that far. More likely, this place is in Amador or Calaveras or Alpine county; lots of wilderness in that section of the Sierra foothills, not too many towns, and a sparse population in winter. And the traveling time would be just about right, if my memory hasn’t distorted those long, painful hours on the road.
All right: the Sierra foothills east or northeast of Stockton. That isn’t much, but it’s something. Not having
any
idea of where you are is like existing in limbo, as if you were already dead.
So I’ve been listening to KHOT and its honky-tonk music. One of the songs they played was “You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me, Lucille,” and for some reason
What else could thirteen represent, if not years? An occurrence on the thirteenth of the month—the thirteenth of December, maybe? If he’d snatched me on the thirteenth of this month, then yes, that might be it. But he hadn’t. He’d made his grab on December 4—Friday, December 4. Some sort of correlation between four and thirteen? No, that’s reaching too far.
Look at it another way: Why
did
he pick December 4? Why not December 3, or December 5 or any other damn day? Could have been nothing more than random selection—the day he was ready, when all his preparations were made. But it could also be that there’s an underlying meaning to the date too. Something that happened on December 4 thirteen years ago? Possible. But if I can’t be sure entire cases took place in a given year, how the hell can I remember something that might have happened on a specific date that long ago?
Thirteen. Thirteen. A superstitious symbol, an unlucky number for some and lucky one for others. Suppose it’s a lucky one for him? The thirteen weeks might not have any meaning beyond that. I might be trying to make too much out of it, stumbling around in a blind alley….
Let it go for now. The thirteen weeks means something or it doesn’t, and if it does I’ll figure it out eventually. That’s the way my mind has always worked. Let it alone, let it simmer on a back burner and one day it all comes boiling up to the surface.
Gnawing in my belly—it’s time to eat. Spam. I used to hate Spam when I was a kid; I haven’t eaten it in twenty years or more. But I looked at a can while I was making coffee this morning, and it started my mouth watering. Funny.
Why should I crave Spam after all these years, in a place and a situation like this?
----
The Fifth Day
----
Good weather this morning. Blue sky, sunlight slanting in through the window at an oblique angle. I stood at the window for a long time, watching the sun sparkle on the snowdrifts and the snow-heavy tree branches and the icicles hanging from the near eaves of the shed roof. Snow looks so clean and fresh with the sun on it; everything looks clean and fresh, untouched, unsullied, and it gives you hope. Not that I’m losing hope. No. But with the day bright like this, so clean-looking, the loneliness is a little easier to handle and I don’t have to work so hard to keep my spirits up, to keep on believing.
I fiddled with the radio again while I was at the window and had better luck. The honky-tonk station came in for a visit and hasn’t left yet, at least not for more than a few minutes at a time. It’s staticky and it keeps fluctuating, but it’s audible enough.
Station KHOT, out of Stockton. That gives me some idea of where I am. A Stockton country station doesn’t figure to have all that much range, so that puts this cabin somewhere in the Sierras to the east of Stockton. Yosemite’s to the southeast; so are clusters of little Mother Lode towns and ski resorts. Doesn’t figure he’d have taken me down that far. More likely, this place is in Amador or Calaveras or Alpine county; lots of wilderness in that section of the Sierra foothills, not too many towns, and a sparse population in winter. And the traveling time would be just about right, if my memory hasn’t distorted those long, painful hours on the road.
All right: the Sierra foothills east or northeast of Stockton. That isn’t much, but it’s something. Not having
any
idea of where you are is like existing in limbo, as if you were already dead.
So I’ve been listening to KHOT and its honky-tonk music. One of the songs they played was “You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me, Lucille,” and for some reason
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