Part 6

"SHIT!"

The fall was quick and the shock of hitting the water intense. Peck tried to keep his grip on Murdock but they were forced apart almost immediately. Peck tried to look to see where his partner had gone but his vision was blurred by the water and the muddle of bubbles that clouded everything.

Then the cold took him and he could think no more. Frozen fingers grasped at his lungs squeezing out his precious air and an icy chill clutched at his limbs, numbing them, making them useless. Still he went downwards, into the blackness below, all senses closing down and all thought lost. The pressure from his lungs was intense and at the moment he was sure he could endure it no more he suddenly changed direction and was going up; up through the brightening water, towards the sunlight that arrowed through the gloom.

A splash signalled him breaking the surface and for a second his senses worked again. He thankfully gasped in a gulp of air but then everything was muffled, wet and cold as he was pulled back under. He knew he could not fight the relentless power of the water, so he decided to go with it, allowing the river to pull him downstream but it was a painful business as his pitiful body crashed into rocks that had stood sentinel over the river for centuries. The pain shot through him and he groaned. He was still trying to breathe and sometimes he managed it but other times he sucked in only more of the cold water and he could do nothing but choke and spit.

He wondered then if this was how it was all going to end. But even that thought was wrenched from his grasp as he slammed into another rock and the pain arced through him forcing away all coherent thought. His senses were waterlogged and he could not keep his head out of water long enough to see where he was going so he was unprepared for each new obstacle that he buffeted into. Still he told himself to relax, to not give into the black fear that threatened him, just to exist, to breathe again one more breath whenever the chance arrived.

The bruising journey seemed to last a lifetime and Peck had the odd sensation that this was all his life had ever been. Everything else was but a passing fancy, the cold, the pain, the fear that crystallised through him was all that was real.

And then the battering stopped. He managed to force his head out of the water and sucked in deep long breaths. He was aware of hands clasping hold of him, pulling him out and then he was lying on his side, gasping like a dying fish, stomach heaving uncontrollably as he retched up oceans of mountain water.

Finally he seemed to have expelled all the liquid from his lungs, eyes and ears and he rolled over onto his back, groaning and blinking miserably at the figure he could dimly make out standing over him.

"Damn city boys and your goddamn thrill seeking," a gnarled voice growled, followed by a spitting sound. "Forgot something important, didn't you?

"What?" Peck heard Murdock's somewhat muffled voice beside him and couldn't still the relieved flutter of relief it caused in his already fragile gut.

"Next time," came the knowing voice. "Remember your goddamn canoe!"


"Shall we go through it again?" The Sheriff regarded him from under bushy eyebrows.

Peck let out a long breath. "I already told you," he sighed working at keeping his tone tolerant.

Sheriff Wyatt Hopkins shook his head patiently. "Nope," he said before turning and spitting into the bowl beside him. "Don't think you've told me all there is to tell. And until you do that I'm gonna keep right on asking!"

Peck shook his head and steepled his handcuffed hands together on the table in front of him. "Can I have a lawyer?" he asked.

"Nope," Accompanied by another spit. "Can't be doing with your city ways here. If you tell me what was going on, then you won't need a lawyer, will you?" His hairy face creased into what Peck suspected may have been a smile but under so much hair who could tell? Piercing intelligent grey eyes regarded him with a challenging twinkle. "Let's recap, shall we? Your name is Templeton Arthur Peck. You were released from Folsom State Prison at precisely 2.16 this afternoon and you were apprehended by me and my men at 4.43 taking an impromptu swim in goddamn Sierra Creek. You were at large for exactly two hours, twenty seven minutes. In that time I have had reported numerous traffic violations, six public order complaints not to mention stories of gangsters with guns marauding through the forest! I think you may have set some sort of goddamn record with all this!" Another spit. He leaned in towards Peck then, beady grey eyes cold and foreboding. "I know for sure that unless you start talking quick I will be taking your sorry ass straight back to Folsom!"

"Do we get a meal here?" Peck asked. "Cos all that swimming has made me real hungry!" He shrugged uncomfortably as the rough material of the prison fatigues, he had been given to replace his wet and ruined suit, rubbed along his skin. He tried not to let the fact that he was back in prison garb again so soon play on his mind but it was a depressing thought.

"Dammit!" Hopkins stood up in a rush of anger. "You think you're real smart, don't you Peck! But I haven't done forty years as a law man not to be able to smell trouble when it comes calling. And you reek of it! Now I have witnesses who can put you at the picnic area with a gun, a blatant violation of your parole. You better start talking."

"I think your witnesses are mistaken. My colleague, he may have had a gun but not me." Peck kept his voice calm and even, almost bored.

Hopkins snorted as he felt his frustration building angrily deep inside – he was not known as a patient man, in fact his lack of that particular virtue had caused him to be known by the name 'Volcano' for most of his youth. With maturity and the Sherrif's job the nickname had been dropped but its cause remained nevertheless. Nowadays the authority of his rank plus his overbearing and hirsute presence was enough to turn his captives to jello before his eyes. He glared at the seemingly calm man before him – his usual prisoners were just city kids out for a good time or the local scum who knew him well – it wasn't often that a real criminal fell into Hopkins' hands. He wanted to make the most of it and to do that he had to keep his temper. "And why did your colleague, Mr .. eh Murdock, have a gun?" he managed to get out through gritted teeth.

Peck shrugged. "Hunting, I guess!"

"Hunting!" Hopkins spat in disgust. "Hunting with a revolver! Why in hell should I be surprised, eh? You boys went white water rafting without the boat!"

Peck gave him the benefit of his full power smile, his teeth gleaming in the dull light of the cramped office. "We city boys like to do things differently!" he beamed.

"Associating with a man with a gun is still a breech of your parole!" Hopkins leaned back and drew in a long, rattling sigh. "I'm not gonna get anywhere with you am I?"

"I wasn't driving, I wasn't shooting and I certainly wasn't committing any crime, Sheriff. I guess that means you have to let me go." Peck sat back, mirroring the Sheriff's movement and smirking arrogantly.

"Take him back to the cells," Hopkins said gruffly. "Let him goddamn stew a while."

Peck's face crumpled in mock despair. "Stew?" he said. "Do you have to mention food cos I'm starving!"

"Damn city boy!" Hopkins groaned as Peck departed. The Sheriff sighed as he reviewed what he knew or rather the depressing gaps in his knowledge base. Hopkins had his reputation to think about – the elections weren't long away – and he knew what he had now would be laughed out of court. Still it didn't seem goddamn right that a smart-mouthed confidence man should get away with it! But get away with what? That was the problem! Hopkins' senses told him there was something very wrong here. But still he had no evidence!

He slammed his fist down on the desk, hard. "Don't play unless you can win," he muttered the mantra he had developed through his long years as a law man. His instinct told him he should delve deeper but his brain said leave well alone – in the morning they would be gone, just two bundles of goddamn old trash that reeked of trouble lost in the stinking cesspit that was LA. The Sheriff sighed again – he had enough to do without getting involved in this shit. Let them be someone-else's problem.

He pulled his aching body out of the chair, put on his hat and made his way to the diner on the edge of town he liked to frequent. He couldn't let goddamn trash come between him and his dinner after all!


"I'm sorry, Face," Murdock said as he stood at the bars to the cell next to his. "I didn't mean it to end like this. I mean I pick you up from prison this afternoon and where are you gonna spend the night? In a cell!"

Peck was sitting on his bed. He rolled his eyes. "Doesn't matter Murdock," he replied. "You know I've been in a lot worse than this. It's dry, it's warm, dinner wasn't wonderful but it was edible and at least it's safe."

"It's not fair though." Both realised that Murdock was echoing Peck's words from earlier

Peck leaned back and stretched. "You'd have thought at our age we'd have gotten used to that, wouldn't you?" He sighed as he glanced around their accommodation helplessly "I think maybe I should write a book – prison cells I have known!"

"You all right, though really?" Murdock peered at his friend. "You were well strung out this afternoon."

Peck stood up and moved to stand in front of Murdock. "I've had a lot on my mind recently and this afternoon didn't help. But I'm cool now." Full blazing smile curled his lips. "Hell, I bet nobody else ever came out of prison with quite the same experience you gave me today!"

Murdock nodded. "I wanted it to be special!" he said.

"Well it was certainly memorable. I'll be coughing up that river for months!" He reached out through the bars of his adjoining cell and gently ran his hand down Murdock's cheek. "Thanks for waiting for me," he said almost shyly.

Murdock gulped. "Didn't think we'd have to wait any longer."

Peck chuckled humourlessly. "What's another day? One hundred and twenty one nights alone are much the same as a hundred and twenty. And at least tonight I can see you. Besides you and me are past masters at waiting, aren't we?"

"Don't make it any easier," Murdock breathed as they both leaned into each other, lips quivering, and bodies ready.

"That's enough!" Sheriff Hopkins' voice came from the door followed by the telltale sound of his spit. "Move away from each other now, goddamn it!" With a barely concealed sigh Peck stepped back as Hopkins continued, his voice tinged with disgust. "Don't want none of your queer city boys ways here!"

Still an immensely private person, especially as far as his relationship with Murdock was concerned and embarrassed to be caught in a compromising pose by a stranger, Peck withdrew instantly and moved back to his bed as Murdock watched him sadly.

Murdock whistled through his teeth, feigning indifference but his wide eyes followed Peck's retreat. "Don't worry about it, Face," he whispered. "That was one hell of a Butch and Sundance moment we shared!"

There was little light in the cell area and so the pilot missed the tense tightening of Peck's body as his control faltered.

Murdock awoke in his cell later that night with an extreme sense of being watched. He shuddered, unable to damp down the emotion that seemed to flick through him and unwilling to examine its source further.

Instead he focused on the practical – he was in the middle cell of a block of five, all others were empty save for the one directly on his left. They were in the block behind the main Sheriff's office. It was dark, Murdock guessed it was probably somewhere between 1.00 and 2.00 in the morning, the only light was a beam that came through the slightly open office door cutting through the darkness to cascade on to the cell next to him.

The pilot's eyes followed the light and came to rest of the slight bulge of the figure laying on the cot. The light did not fall on Peck's features but on his lower body still Murdock could see its reflection shining brightly in those familiar eyes that lit the gloom beyond.

"Face, you awake?" Murdock whispered.

"Uh huh." The eyes blinked once.

Murdock had his suspicions about why Face was lying in the dark, unwilling to sleep but instead of voicing them he simply stated. "It's the middle of the night."

Face snorted. "I could say the same to you," he muttered.

"I'm awake cos I felt somebody looking at me – you. What's your excuse?"

The eyes blinked again and looked away as Peck made a non committal noise.

"You wanna know what I think?" Murdock asked, sitting up in the bed so he could get a better view through the dimness. Peck ignored him so he continued. "I think you're scared to go to sleep, scared cos you'll dream and I'll hear it. There's something in your dreams that frightens you so very much and I'll hear and know you lied to me."

Still no reaction from Peck whose features were silvered by the slitting light slicing through the doorway.

Murdock snorted with impatience. "Wouldn't be the first time," he said.

Peck leaned forward a little so his face was bathed in the light fully and turned to look at the other man. "What?" he asked in a faraway voice that matched the dullness in his eye.

"That you've lied to me," Murdock continued resolutely; not quite sure where he was going with this line of attack but trusting the instinct that came from deep in his guts. He wanted a reaction, an emotion – anger, affected innocence, indignation, anything to prove the man he loved was still there, but Peck simply nodded and turned his eyes back to the ceiling.

Murdock felt the frustration; they had been apart for so long, he had forgotten just how stubborn his partner could be. Still he pushed, "So you're not going to deny it, then?"

Peck sighed. "What and lie again? What would be the point?"

Murdock hesitated, peering through the gloom, desperate to get a sense of what was really going on here – the lifeless voice, the acceptance, the defeat was so unlike the conman he knew and loved – maybe prison had had a greater affect than he realised? "You're scaring me, Face," he confessed finally.

Peck turned to look at him again. "I was remembering, that's all," he said softly.

"Remembering? Remembering what?"

"A night in Nam." The voice was so faraway now, Murdock thought it had left for the Asian country of memory. "We were drunk, must have spent the night in the OC. Anyway, I started to rain and you decided you couldn't make it to your billet so you stayed in our hooch. You were hunkered down on the floor, wrapped in a blanket, snoring…"

"I do not snore!"

"Do to!"

"Do not!"

Peck snorted. "OK, you were on the floor in a blanket appearing to snore but obviously not and I was on my bunk watching you, like a couple of minutes ago. You're really cute when you're still and quiet, Murdock, really cute." He let out a breath full of longing.

Murdock waited, enjoying the warm, tingling feeling deep inside that Peck's words had sparked. "And?" he said finally when he could wait no more.

"I was thinking how I fucked it all up," Peck said. "And how I'm going to do it again."

In a rush of movement, Murdock threw off his blanket and went to stand as near as the bars would allow to the other man. "Why do you think that, Face?"

"You all tried," Peck continued. "Hannibal, BA and you, especially you, and for a while you looked after me. But I was screwed up before you met me, I'll always be screwed up. It's just too easy for me to press my self destruct button."

Murdock gulped. "Facey," he breathed, longing to be able to touch his friend. "That's just not true – you're the best man I ever met."

"If I'm so good, how come I end up in fucken prison every five minutes? How come the only thing I've ever been good at is conning and stealing from people? How come I never make a relationship last for longer than two months, how come everybody leaves me? And how come I'm laying in the dark, all alone, just desperate for a touch, any touch?" It was a torrent of emotion that washed out of the conman and once started Peck was unable to hold it back.

Murdock faltered, realising, though he had hoped to provoke an emotion, he had never dreamed it would come in this outpouring of such intense hopelessness. He felt at once proud, knowing that he was the only soul on the whole planet that Peck would ever reveal himself to so completely but also he felt guilt as he was to blame for their predicament and he could do little about it. Arguments of how best to respond slewed through his mind, but he resisted all save one; he focused on the statement that hurt him most. "Our relationship has lasted longer than two months, Face; thirty years and it's still going strong." He did nothing to silence the anguish that clutched in his voice.

He saw Peck gulp and the emotion flicker across those perfect features. "I wanted to go to you then," Peck said. "When you were on the floor in the hooch, looking so cute, so warm, so safe. Even with all the other guys close, I almost did. I wanted you to take me in your arms and hold me, hold me forever. Keep me safe; keep me away from all danger, all the trouble, all the fuck ups that were waiting for me. You could have done that for me."

Murdock closed his eyes. So that was what this about! All the bravado of earlier; one hundred and twenty one nights being no different than one hundred and twenty that was all it had been, pure bravado; Peck keeping up appearances as usual. Murdock felt an overpowering rush of affection wash through him – how he loved this guy! But he had to keep focused, forced himself to respond as neutrally as he could, even though his loins were somersaulting with desire. "Why didn't you then, Face?"

Peck snorted, shaking his head slowly. "I always wanted what I couldn't have, wanted to be something I wasn't; always went for the long shot, the risky option. Never found what I was looking for because that wasn't it, not really." He sniffed. "What I needed was right in front of my eyes for thirty years! Don't deserve you, Murdock – I never did!"

"Face, you're an idiot!" Murdock said, his voice warm with fondness. "You got me whether you deserve me or not, and you'll always have me."

"Would it have changed things?" Peck asked. "If I'd found the courage that night to do what I wanted. Would it have made things better?"

Murdock snorted. "It doesn't matter, Face. I told you earlier, you can't keep battering yourself with this, you know it. Gotta put it all out of your mind, put it behind us – you're the best guy I know for enduring tough shit and then moving on."

Face sniffed. "It's frightening being alone in the dark," he said wistfully sounding nothing more than the little boy that hid deep inside him, so effectively hidden by the wise-talking, brash exterior he showed the world.

"I know, Face, but it's just for tonight, after that I promise that you never need to be alone again – I'll be right with you every step of the way."

"I'll fuck it up!"

"Doesn't matter – I'll still love you, no matter what."

Peck nodded. He still lay unmoving on the bed but now his moist eyes came back to rest on Murdock, standing at the bars before him. "Thank you," he said softly.

Murdock smiled. "You gotta sleep now, Face, you're exhausted. I'm right over here and it's not so dark, not when we're together is it? You and me, Face, it's just you and me, forever!"


TBC