Hip Cities and Lost Souls

    Lance heard the approach of the van even before the sound came of its tires popping over the gravel drive outside the motel, a hazy memory of those dark days waiting in the jungle for the arrival of choppers, lives hanging on the whisper of their approach and whether they would arrive on time, though now, no bleeding bodies lay around him, no moaning and groaning of wounded often dying men, just the silence between him and Sarah as they sat, waiting, with the sharp, hurried stomp of Dan’s boots on the walkway just outside. Each footfall filled with a growing panic only the pace could attest to, the scent of the van’s exhaust telling Lance even more, a sense of flight, as if at any moment, something, someone other than Dan would burst into the room. “Cong!” a distant voice echoed in his head, along with the remembered rat tat tat of machinegun fire, theirs, and the response of the grunts dug into soil as unsubstantial as blood. “Is that him?” Sarah asked, her voice sh...

      They were back there somewhere    though the rearview mirror showed only the passing glitter of Denver suburb street lights, like stars glowing from a bowl of water. Dan Newhaul gripped the wheel as the van followed the winding road up and out of it, circling the belly of the mountain like a lopsided belt.   Back there riding the curve behind him with their headlights off. He tried to picture their grim faces and grey suits, wondering if they would break his legs or toss him off a cliff. He glanced forward in time to swerve away from the guard rail as the road began to tighten to it slow winding way around the mountain, narrowing a two lane county road that connected Denver with Boulder.   Calm down, boy! Don't do their job for them.   As the grade increased, the van protested. The weak Volkswagen engine struggling to keep up speed. It hadn't been built for mountains like these. And the thin air affected its fuel mixture, set origina...

     David Lance stared down at the money on the bed, at the stack of wrinkled tens and twenties that he had removed from a half dozen pockets and compartments in their travel bags. He had counted five times, with each count coming up to the same disappointing figure of $2000. At other times in his life, he would have thought this as a small fortune, especially during the dog days of the army when he could buy almost nothing on his monthly stipend, even with combat pay. Yet staring down at the rumpled money, he saw a shrinking fortune, something so large once he believed it would last forever. Yet in eight months, he and Sarah had managed to nearly squander it all. Where had the other $18,000 gone? Certainly not into anything so luxurious as a house or a car. The only thing they owned of value was a 1959 VW van with a blue book value well under $500 counting all their possessions packed inside.   "So?" Sarah asked, folding their clothing into the motel dresser, a...

    Darkness swelled in room beyond the bookcase, its shadow sniffing at the cracks of the hidden door like a police hound. Jorge's head leaned against the unfinished wood, his eyes burning from staring through the spy hole at nothing. His back ached from too many hours sitting in one place, morning fading into afternoon, and then into night.   The previous master of the commune had let Jorge in on the secret of this place, telling him to hide here whenever the police came.   "Unless they have dogs, they'll never find you," the master had said.   True to this, no one had, though the police had come into the room outside the bookcase during the initial raid, the fat sheriff sniffing around at the corners of the room as if sensing the hidden space behind the bookcase. The man's dented nose had come so close to the peephole Jorge could nearly count the hairs in each nostril.   Then behind him, emerging through the door from the rest of the house, ano...