Raylan Givens sat handcuffed in the back of a policecar despite his protests that although he had indeed killed Gunnar Swift, he was not Boyd Crowder's accomplice in escaping prison and robbing banks. The car door was slammed closed in response to his words and he was left alone in the dark.
His hat had been confiscated.
Raylan watched from the window.
Outside the vehicle Officer and Partner addressed Dillon, Dickie, Sumo and Boyd. All except for Dillon (who the police believed was Deputy US Marshal Tim Gutterson) had been forced to drop their weapons, the guns—real and fake—lay on the packed earth yard of Van Higgins' tiny house.
The two cops had not yet noticed Ava and Zach ducked down and silent in the back of the beat up old car.
"The dead man is Boyd Crowder." Dillon lied to the officers, "He and Givens had some dispute over the money they stole so he shot him just before I arrived."
"I thought you said he had hair." Officer reminded, motioning towards the buzzed cut head of the dead Gunnar Swift.
"He must have shaved it since he knew the authorities were looking for him." Dillon shrugged, "But he still has the Neo Nazi tattoos. You can look for yourself."
"…uh, that's okay." Officer grimaced. She was paid to catch and occasionally kill the criminals—not examine their corpses.
"Who are those three?" Partner wondered, pointing at Boyd, Dickie, and Sumo.
"We're furniture movers." Boyd declared quickly, "Just at the wrong place at the wrong time. We arrived in that U-Haul van there to clean out this house, just a few minutes before you pulled up, to see one man holding a gun and another man dead on the ground. "
Dickie and Sumo glanced at Boyd, then at the two police officers, nodding in agreement to Boyd's declaration.
Partner and Officer narrowed their eyes in suspicion at all three men.
"What do furniture movers need guns for?" Officer questioned.
"For situations such as these." Boyd exemplified, matter-of-factly, "We drew our weapons only in self-defense and dropped them as soon as you ordered us to."
"You have permits for them?" Partner added.
"No, but that's because we don't need to." Boyd answered, "They're fakes. Just for show, to scare off any would-be robbers from stealing our customers' silverware and fine china."
"You know the owner of this house is dead, right?" Officer tested.
Boyd widened his eyes in feigned surprise. "Really? This is the first I've heard. How unfortunate…especially since my colleagues and I won't get reimbursed for our time and effort."
"You're pretty well spoken for a man who moves furniture." Officer commented, hands on her hips.
Boyd smiled. "Well, ma'am, just because I like to work with my hands don't mean I don't know enjoy exercising my mind in my spare time. And by the way, you're pretty pretty for a police officer."
Officer smiled back, scoffing. "Don't flirt with me while I'm on the job. I already learned my lesson today." She glanced at Raylan seated in the back of her police car.
Boyd chuckled. "Are my colleagues and I free to go, since we won't be moving any furniture today?"
Officer nodded. "You can go."
"Can we take our fake guns?" Boyd requested, gesturing to the weapons, only two of them fake, on the dirt in front of him.
Officer nodded again.
Boyd bent and picked his gun, the one had had found in Van Higgin's fancy car, up off of the ground. He turned to Dickie and Sumo.
"Come on, colleagues." He invited, "Let's take our toys and go home." He started towards the U-Haul van.
Sumo reached down and grabbed his fake gun. He followed Boyd.
Dickie glanced at Dillon for help. He did not want to get into the van with Boyd Crowder.
Dillon, who did not care about Dickie but also did not want to let Boyd get away, spoke up.
"I actually need to commandeer that vehicle so I can transport the body of Boyd Crowder to the nearest morgue." He said.
"We can get a team—" Partner offered.
"That's alright." Dillon refused, "I'm sure they're busy with the bodies at the ranch. I'll handle it."
Partner and Officer nodded.
"We'll leave you to it, then." Officer allowed.
She and her Partner got into the front seat of their policecar, her in the driver's seat. She put the key in the ignition and started the car.
It drove off with Raylan in the back still trying to explain what had really happened.
Boyd, Dickie, Dillon and Sumo watched the policecar go. Once it was gone, they turned to each other.
"Mr. Foley." Boyd addressed, "You have two options now—"
Before Boyd could even finish his sentence, Sumo had tackled the unsuspecting prison guard standing in front of Boyd down to the dusty ground. Under Sumo's massive body, Dillon was not crushed to death but he was immobile—unable to draw his gun or shove Sumo off of him.
"Go!" Sumo shouted from atop Dillon's struggling body, both of them face down.
"Why thank you, Sumo." Boyd nodded. He turned to Dickie, pointing the gun straight at his face, "You gone try to stop me?"
Dickie shook his head, overgrown mustache shaking with it.
Boyd lowered his gun and jogged over to the beat up old car where Ava and Zach sat in the back. He got into the driver's seat, found the keys waiting for him in the ignition so turned them.
Dickie, Sumo and Dillon watched Boyd, Ava and Zach drive away.
When Raylan was released from the holdingcell in the Lebec, California police station the last three people he expecting to see in the station lobby were former colleagues Art, Tim and Rachel. They each gave him their own version of an amused but frustrated look.
Rachel was holding his black cowboy hat. She handed it to him and he placed it on top of his brown hair.
Raylan sighed. "I can explain."
"Do it in the car." Art said, "Lebec Police put out a bolo on the vehicles last seen where you were arrested. The officer took down their license plates."
He glanced out the glass doors of the station at the parkinglot outside. There, in the early night darkness, was the rental SUV he, Rachel and Tim had drove up to the small town from the city airport in.
Raylan scanned the small lobby. There was a woman behind the front desk, but it was not Officer.
"Is she going to apologize for arresting me?" he wondered.
"Probably not." Tim replied, "But she did apologize for letting a prison guard pass himself off as me."
"Maybe she just thought you had a tan." Rachel commented, "It is California."
Tim rolled his eyes.
"That guard's probably dead by now." Raylan declared, "I wouldn't be surprised if Boyd killed him. He said that the guard and three prisoners were sent to find him. The warden was in on his escape and didn't want anyone to find out."
"Well, we better get to Crowder before he kills anyone else." Art stated, already turning and starting towards the exit doors.
Raylan nodded.
Now that Boyd had Zachariah, he might want to kill Ava so she did not take their son away from him again…
Boyd kept one tattooed hand on the steeringwheel of the beat up old car he was driving. The other was on the gun given to him by Ava inside of Van Higgin's tiny house because she had thought she, he and Raylan would have a shootout with the prison guard and prisoners come to take Boyd.
Ava, buckled in the back next to Zach in his carseat, already regretted giving it to him even though she held a gun of her own in her hand, the other stroking her son's soft brown hair. His face was still red from crying at the sound of a gunshot, but he had calmed down now.
"Where are we going, Boyd?" Ava demanded.
Boyd ignored her and continued his steady speed down the interstate highway. Theirs was the fastest car on the road, over the speedlimit by almost twenty miles.
The moon was bright above them, now, but otherwise the sky was dark.
"Mom, why's the shouting man with us again?" Zach wondered, "I thought he had to go away."
"He had some more people to protect us from, I guess…" Ava answered, voice low and worried as if Boyd was the one they needed protecting from.
She glanced out the window beside her at the darkness outside. There was a large sign they zoomed right past.
Los Angeles
50 Miles
"LA?" Ava exclaimed, "What are we gonna do there? We won't be able to hide!"
"We're just passing through." Boyd finally spoke, cold and smooth.
"On our way to where?" Ava followed-up.
"San Diego." Boyd said, "And its twin Tijuana on the other side of the border."
Ava's green eyes widened, "Mexico?!"
"Aunt Rosa and Uncle Luis are from Mexico." Zach interjected.
"I know, honey." Ava replied, quickly, running a hand through her long blonde hair nervously.
She continued to stare at the back of Boyd's head. His brown was reaching upwards, as usual, almost scraping the low-ceiling of the cheap car.
"Last time you were in Mexico you got set up by your cousin Johnny, captured by a drug cartel, robbed by the police, and tricked by the men you hired to help you!" Ava reminded Boyd, "Ain't nothing good gonna come from going to Mexico, especially not with your own…"
She stopped before she said the word 'son'. Zach was sitting right next to her and listening. (In fact, he had heard that same story she was telling before, in one of Boyd's sermons on the Prison Preacher Radio Hour.)
Boyd slammed his driving hand down on the steeringwheel and whipped his head around to glare at Ava.
"Now, I have half a mind to leave you by the side of the road, Ava!" he shouted at her, "After what you did to me—not just shooting me and then threatening to kill me three times in one day—but also how tried your goddamn best to keep our—Zachariah—away from me!"
Ava blinked. She was surprised that Boyd respected her decision to keep the secret that Boyd was Zach's father from the toddler.
Zach's green eyes were filling with tears again. He had been frightened by Boyd's volume and anger, and gaped at the man he did not know what his parent.
Seeing this, Boyd's expression softened. He smiled in embarrassment and apology.
"I'm sorry if I scared you, Zachariah." He soothed, "Though it's important to use our words instead of our hands to communicate, I should be more careful about how I choose and say the words I use."
Zach sniffed.
Boyd turned away from him and Ava, back towards the road. He pressed the break, lightly slowing down the car, and steering it out of the fast lane and merging it diagonally across the highway
"I thought we were going to San Diego." Ava said, when the car started turning off onto an exit ramp.
"We're stopping somewhere for the night." Boyd declared, "And when we leave tomorrow morning, with full bellies and a full tank of gas, it'll be in a vehicle with a license plate, and make and model, that the police are not looking for."
"What if the prison guard or Raylan catches up to us?" Ava asked.
"Raylan's behind bars." Boyd dismissed, "And I'm sure the prison guard had his gun and his van—if not also his life—taken from him by Dickie Bennett, who by now has probably gotten lost on some dirt road in the California countryside while enjoying his newfound freedom."
Ava sighed, sinking into her seat next to Zach as the beat up old car got off the highway onto a stretch of road lined by fastfood drivethroughs and cheap motels. In the starless darkness, the glowing letters were bright with artificial light.
It was past Zach's bedtime. It had been a long, emotional Monday, and it had tired him out. Still, he protested going to sleep by jumping up and down on the probably unwashed comforter of queensize mattress in the motelroom.
The television was on, volume low. Some reporter was detailing the shootout that had occurred in on a ranch Lebec and a mugshot of Boyd Crowder glowered menacingly behind him as the example of the perpetrator.
Boyd Crowder, in the flesh instead of the photograph, was in the tiny bathroom. The door was wide open, so he was visible standing in front of the sink and mirror, and the buzz of an electric razor was audible.
He was shaving his head.
Ava glanced at him from where she stood by the heavy-curtained window. Every few seconds she would move the curtain slightly to gaze out, expecting to see flashing police lights or Raylan Givens.
Then, she glanced at Zach, still bouncing on the bed, barefoot.
"Honey, stop that!" she exploded, suddenly, "Get under those covers and get to sleep!"
Zach, mid jump into the air, let himself fall. He landed crosslegged on the comforter and glared up at his standing mother.
"They're looking for him." He informed, pointing at the televisionscreeen image of Boyd's mugshot. Then he turned towards the bathroom, "They're looking for you, Boyd Crowder!"
The buzz of the razor stopped.
"I know, Zachariah!" Boyd called back, "And since when did you call me by my first name? I thought I was 'shouting man'."
Zach grinned, first at Boyd then at Ava.
"Boyd Crowder." He repeated, like a child that had discovered a curse word.
Ava did not even really know why she did not like to hear his sweet little voice say that.
Maybe it because she hated the name, but that was not true. Maybe it was because she hated the man, but that was not true either.
Maybe it was because it was no way for a child to address his father.
Whatever it was, Zach had noticed her discomfort and testing her the way children tested their parents.
"You don't talk to adults that way." Ava ordered, "It's disrespectful."
"What should I call him then?" Zach asked, innocently. "'Uncle Boyd'? Like I call Uncle Luis 'uncle'?"
Ava shook her head. That would not be right, especially since her first husband was Boyd's brother and that was just too weird when she considered it.
"Why not go back to 'shouting man'?" she suggested.
"Boyd Crowder." Zach stated.
Ava groaned.
Boyd exited the bathroom with a razor in hand and no hair on his head that made her blink, then gape.
"Your mother's right." He told Zach, who was still facing Ava and so had not yet seen his change in hairstyle, "Besides, with the people out there looking for me you wouldn't want to say my name too loud and get me into trouble. Don't you want to protect me, Zachariah, like I've protected you?"
Zach nodded. "Uh huh."
He turned around to smile at Boyd but instead yelped at the sight of Boyd's new bald head, falling backwards with a plop.
Boyd chuckled. So did Ava, she could not help it.
"I'm gone go get another car, Ava." Boyd told her.
He made his way past the bed where Zach lay, still in shock, towards Ava, the window and the door to the motelroom. Zach twisted his neck without moving the rest of his small body to watch him.
"You're leaving?" she asked, folding her arms, "How're you so sure we'll be here when you get back?"
"Because I'm taking your only transportation other than the two legs you stand on." Boyd explained, "You gone go hitchhiking with your little boy this late?"
Ava shook her head. "How you know you won't get spotted and arrested?"
Boyd stroked his bald head where his cornstalk hair used to stand. "They're not looking for Walter White."
Ava examined Boyd, for a moment, then stepped forward. She reached towards his collar with both hands and, delicately, unbuttoned the two top buttons of the plaid shirt he had taken from the dead Van Higgins.
Boyd watched her thin fingers work, allowing this.
She stepped back and examined him again.
"There." She said, "They'll never recognize you."
He did look remarkably different with his collar opened. More different than with just the bald head.
Ava did not like it.
Boyd smiled. He passed by her, opened the door to the motelroom, keys in his free hand, and left.
It was almost midnight when Boyd Crowder returned to the motelroom.
The television and the lights were off. Zach was asleep, tucked under the covers of the queensize bed.
Ava sat awake, in a wooden chair by the window, in the dark.
Boyd creaked open the door as quietly as he could and closed it behind him with just as little noise. He narrowed his hazel eyes and found the silhouette of Ava watching him in the dim light that snuck in from behind the heavy curtains.
The bald head surprised Ava again, even though she had seen it earlier. The top two buttons of the plaid shirt had been rebuttoned, she guessed Boyd must have done that absentmindedly.
He had a paperbag in one hand. A greasy, salty aroma emanated from it.
"I know it's a little late, but I brought us some dinner." He informed, in a whisper, raising the bag up in demonstration, "Even bought Zachariah a Happy Meal, though I doubt you let him eat so unhealthily on normal occasions."
"This ain't a normal occasion." Ava replied, whispering as well, and glancing away from Boyd at Zach. "But I think I'll just let him sleep for now."
"He looks so peaceful." Boyd commented, gazing at the rise and fall of the blankets above Zach's chest.
As if to contradict the statement, Zach let out a loud snore that could have easily come from an adult man. There was drool on his pillow
Boyd blinked. Ava smirked.
"He gets it from your side of the family." She said.
"Have you ever known me to snore?" Boyd tested, raising a brown eyebrow-the most hair he had left on his shaven head.
"No." Ava admitted, "But Bowman did."
"I know." Boyd admitted, "I shared a bedroom with him before you did. Though never a bed."
He handed her the McDonalds bag. She took it and set it on her lap, opening it with both hands and looking inside.
"Double cheeseburger?" Ava asked, looking up at Boyd.
Boyd nodded. "And fries. A coke, too, in the cupholder. The Happy Meal came with a little bottle of milk."
Ava pulled out the lidded cup of soda from the cardboard cupholder and sipped at its straw. "Tastes weird…" she commented.
"That's because it's diet." Boyd informed, "I thought you might be watching your figure, since you've stayed slim even after having a baby-you look lovely tonight, Ava, by the way. I hope you don't mind me saying so. "
Ava eyed Boyd, carefully. "I don't. Thank you." She took another sip of the soda, scowled at its taste, then scoffed. "Eat fried food and get to think you're healthy cause you had it with a diet coke or skim milk."
She set the medium sized cup on the small wooden table next to the queensize bed where Zach slept. Then she brought out the burger in its box, moving the paperbag down to the carpeted floor so that she could open the box.
Boyd watched. She picked up the burger and bit into it.
Still chewing, Ava looked up at him again and asked, "You're not gonna eat anything?"
"I already ate on the way." Boyd assured. "But thank you for your concern, Ava, I know I have become somewhat emaciated during the last four years. Prison food does not agree with me."
He was eerily calm and casual, as if Ava had not tried to kill him that afternoon and evening. But she knew he still remembered.
As long as their son was around, though, he probably would not act on that memory.
"I know what you mean…" Ava sympathized, remembering her short time in prison.
That was really when the rift between her and Boyd had cracked open in the ground beneath their feet, leaving them on separate sides of the fault line. Then, the gap got wider and wider, with each earthquake; her informing on him for Raylan, her shooting him and running off when she realized she was pregnant, and him finding her, and Zach, and messing up their quiet life in Lebec.
Ava swallowed the food in her mouth then yawned, arms stretching upwards, one of them still holding the bitten burger. She was getting sleepy…
…but she had to stay awake as long as Boyd was here. She did not know what he would do if she fell asleep, and she did not want to find out.
Tuesday morning, just as the sun was rising over Los Angeles' mountains and smog, four US Marshals parked their rental SUV behind a beat up old car located by a state trooper. The car was boxed in between the SUV and the brick wall of the Walmart it had parked in front of.
They were in a stretch of suburb just outside the city of angels.
Art, Tim, Rachel and Raylan were waiting for the driver when he emerged from the big box store, pushing shoppingcart full of electronics he had just purchased. He furrowed his brow in confusion at them, and they furrowed their brows in confusion at him.
"Is there a problem officers?" the teenage Latino boy asked. His name was Manuel and he looked barely old enough to drive.
He stopped himself and his cart, but keeping the metal cart between him and the marshals blocking his path to his new car from the sidewalk, their vehicle blocking his new car's exit from the parkinglot.
Raylan Givens stepped across the paved sidewalk towards the tan-skinned boy.
"Where'd you get that car?" he questioned.
"Man, I didn't steal nothing." Manuel refused, "Dude paid me to take this car."
"What 'dude'?" Raylan pressed.
"Bald old white dude." Manuel described, "A skinhead or a cancer patient, I dunno."
Raylan glanced at Tim, Art and Rachel standing behind him. They shrugged.
Raylan turned back towards Manuel. "Did this 'bald old white dude' have an accent?"
Manuel nodded. "Yeah, he sounded like he was from the south. Texas, maybe?"
"Was the money he gave you pink?" Tim asked, remembering the bank robbery in Eddyville on Saturday and the dyepack that had the teller had said she had put inside the bag of cash in her statement.
"He told me it was paint," Manuel shrugged, "and that he was a house painter. I didn't ask any questions when he gave it to me."
"Where's the rest of it?" Art asked, moving forward to stand beside Raylan.
Manuel smiled sheepishly, and gestured to shoppingcart his other hand still held the pushbar of. There was a flatscreen television, a videogame console, and a laptop. "I spent it all, man…"
Art sighed and glanced at Raylan next to him. Raylan was scanning the parkinglot even though he knew Boyd Crowder was long gone.
"Did he say where he was going by any chance?" he asked the boy.
Manuel shook his head. "I told you I didn't ask any questions."
"Well he won't get far without a car." Raylan declared, turning away from Manuel to face Art, Tim, and Rachel.
"I'll call all the rental places in the area." Rachel replied.
"And I'll call the local police." Tim added, "Tell them to let us know if anybody gets carjacked."
Ava Crowder woke up mid-morning on Tuesday, head pounding and eyelids heavy. Sunlight fazed through the curtains of the window to her side, warming her face.
She was under the blankets of a bed, though she did not remember laying down or tucking herself in.
Gasping, she jolted up and scanned the motelroom.
It was empty.
Boyd and Zach were gone.
"No!" Ava cried, leaping out of bed, throwing the covers off of her body, still wearing the shorts and t-shirt from yesterday.
She ran across the carpet in her socks and yanked open the door. Staring out there was no sign of Boyd or Zach in the parkinglot of the motel.
She slammed the door, and leaned her back against it, sinking down into a seated position.
Boyd had kidnapped Zach.
With teary eyes she glanced at the digital clock on top of the television across from the queensize bed.
10:43 AM
How long had she been asleep? When had Boyd left with Zach? Where had they gone?
Ava snatched her cellphone out of her shorts pockets and called Van Higgins number.
Buzz. Buzz.
Buzz. Buzz.
A phone was vibrating on the wooden table next to the bed. Boyd had left it behind.
Ava pressed the screen of her phone, ending the call.
The diet soda! Ava realized. It had tasted funny not because it was diet, but because Boyd had put some sort of sleeping medication into it.
Ava glanced down at the screen of her phone. She had received a voicemail. She clicked on the icon with one finger to open it.
You have one new voice message. To listen to your messages press—
Ava pressed the 1 on the keyboard.
She listened. Boyd's familiar southern drawl spoke to hear through scratchy speakers.
Ava, this is Boyd. If you're listening to this this then you already I know I have our son and we are long gone. You know where we're going. Now, it's up to you whether you call Raylan to hunt us down, and break up this family, or come after us yourself and keep it together. We can start a new life. Or you can ruin all three of ours. I know I deserve that, and so do you, if you're honest with yourself. But Zachariah does not. He deserves to grow up with both his parents in a happy home somewhere outside of these United States where his mother doesn't try to murder his father…and his father is a better man than an inmate in a state prison. I want that for our son. If you want that too, you'll come find us. If you don't, well…I guess Zachariah and I'll find out soon enough whether you do or don't. See you soon, Ava.
Some fumbling, the sound of vehicles on a road, then the message clicked off.
To save this message—
Ava exited the voicemail box, swallowing the saliva in her dry mouth.
Would Boyd really leave it up to chance whether or not he got arrested and his son taken away from him again?
Ava doubted it.
Wherever he was, he must have some kind a trap set for it Raylan, or the police, arrived instead of Ava alone. It probably involved explosives.
…hopefully it did not involve Zach.
Phone still in hand, Ava dialed Raylan's number.
