"Blue Heaven" - читать интересную книгу автора (Box C J)Friday, 4:28 P.M.IF TWELVE-YEAR-OLD Annie Taylor had not chosen to take her little brother William fishing on that particular Friday afternoon in April during the wet North Idaho spring, she never would have seen the execution or looked straight into the eyes of the executioners. But she was angry with her mother. Before they witnessed the killing, they were pushing through the still-wet willows near Sand Creek, wearing plastic garbage bags to keep their clothes dry. Upturned alder leaves cupped pools of rainwater from that morning, and beaded spiderwebs sagged between branches. When the gray-black fists of storm clouds pushed across the sun, the light muted in the forest and erased the defining edges of the shadows, and the forest plunged into a dispiriting murk. The ground was black, spongy in the forest and sloppy on the trail. Their shoes made sucking sounds as they slogged upstream. Annie and William had left their home on the edge of town, hitched a ride for a few miles with Fiona, the mail lady, and had been hiking for nearly two hours, looking in vain for calm water. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” ten-year-old William said, raising his voice over the liquid roar of the creek, which was angry and swollen with runoff. Annie stopped and turned to William, looking him over. A long fly rod poked out from beneath the plastic he wore. He had snagged the tip several times in the branches, and a sprig of pine needles was wedged into one of the line guides. “You said you wanted to go fishing, so I’m taking you fishing.” “ But you don’t know anything about it,” William said, his eyes widening and his lower lip trembling, which always happened before he began to cry. “William…” “We should go back.” “William, don’t cry.” He looked away. She knew he was trying to stanch it, she could tell by the way he set his mouth. He hated that he cried so easily, so often, that his emotions were so close to the surface. Annie didn’t have that problem. “How many times did Tom tell you he was going to take you fishing?” Annie asked. William wouldn’t meet her eyes. “A bunch,” he said. “How many times has he taken you?” He said sullenly, “You know.” “Yes, I know.” “I sort of like him,” William said. Annie said, “I sort of don’t.” “You don’t like anybody.” Annie started to argue, but didn’t, thinking: An impudent smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Yeah, I guess,” he said. “Look,” she said, raising her plastic bag to show him she was wearing Tom’s fishing vest. She had taken it without asking off a peg in their house. “This thing is filled with lures and flies and whatever. We’ll just tie them to the end of your line and throw ’em out there. The fish can’t be much smarter than Tom, so how hard can it be?” “… if Tom can do it,” he said, his smile more pronounced. That was when they heard a motor rev and die, the sound muffled by the roar of the foamy water. THE BETRAYAL occurred that morning when Tom came downstairs, asked, “What’s for breakfast?” Annie and William were at the table dressed for school eating cereal-Sugar Pops for William, Frosted Mini-Wheats for her. Tom asked his question as if it were the most natural thing in the world, but it wasn’t. Tom had never been in their home for breakfast before, had never stayed the night. He was wearing the same wrinkled clothes from the night before when he’d shown up after dinner to see their mom, what he called his fishing clothes-baggy trousers that zipped off at the thigh, a loose-fitting shirt with lots of pockets. This was new territory for Annie, and she didn’t want to explore it. Instead, she found herself staring at his large, white bare feet. They looked waxy and pale, like the feet of a corpse, but his toes had little tufts of black hair on their tops, which both fascinated and disgusted her. He slapped them wetly across the linoleum floor. “Where’s your mom keep the coffee?” he asked. William was frozen to his chair, his eyes wide and unblinking, his spoon poised an inch from his mouth, Sugar Pops bobbing in the milk. William said, “On the counter, in that canister thing.” Tom repeated “canister thing” to himself with good humor and set about making a pot of coffee. Annie bored holes into the back of his fishing shirt with her eyes. Tom was big, buff, always fake-friendly, she thought. He rarely showed up at their house without a gift for them, usually something lame and last-minute like a Slim-Jim meat stick or a yo-yo he bought at the convenience store at the end of the street. But she’d never seen him like this-disheveled, sleepy, sloppy, talking to the two of them for the very first time like they were real people who knew where the coffee was. “What are you doing here?” she asked. He turned his head. His eyes were unfocused, bleary. “Making coffee.” “No. I mean in my house.” William finally let the spoon continue its path. His eyes never left Tom’s back. A drip of milk snaked down from the corner of his mouth and sat on his chin like a bead of white glue. Tom said, “Your house? I thought it was your mother’s house.” “Is this “There’s toast,” William said, his mouth full. “Mom makes eggs sometimes. And pancakes.” Annie glared at her brother with snake eyes. “Maybe I’ll ask Monica to make me some eggs,” Tom mumbled, as much to himself as to them. He poured a cup of coffee before it filled the carafe. Errant drips sizzled on the hot plate. So it was He came to the table, his feet making kissing sounds on the floor, pulled out a chair, and sat down. She could smell her mother on him, which made her feel sick inside. “That’s Mom’s chair,” she said. “She won’t mind,” he said, flashing his false, condescending smile. To him they were children again, although she got the feeling Tom was just a little scared of her. Maybe he realized now what he’d done. Maybe not. He pointedly ignored Annie, who glared at him, and turned to William. “School, eh?” Tom said, reaching out and tousling the boy’s hair. William nodded, his eyes wide. “Too bad you can’t take the day off and go fishing with me. I really got into some nice ones last night before I came over. Fifteen-, sixteen-inch trout. I brought a few to your mom for you guys to have for dinner.” “I want to go,” William said, swelling out his chest. “I’ve never gone fishing, but I think I could do it.” “You bet you could, little man,” Tom said, sipping the hot coffee. He gestured toward the cluttered mudroom off the kitchen where he’d hung his fishing vest and stored his fly rod in the corner. “I’ve got another rod in my truck you could use.” Suddenly, William was squirming in his chair, excited. “Hey, we get out of school early today! Maybe we could go then?” Tom looked to Annie for clarification. “Early release,” Annie said deadpan. “We’re out at noon.” Tom pursed his lips and nodded, his eyes dancing, now totally in control of William. “Maybe I’ll pick you up and take you after school, then. I’ll ask your mom about it. I can pick you up out front. D’you want to go along, too, Annie?” She shook her head quickly. “You need to ease up a little,” Tom told her, smiling with his mouth only. “You need to go home,” she replied. Tom was about to say something when her mother came down the stairs, her head turned away from the kitchen and toward the front door. Annie watched her mother walk quickly through the living room and part the curtains, expecting, Annie thought, to confirm that Tom’s vehicle was gone. When it wasn’t, her mother turned in horror and took it all in: Tom, Annie, and William at the kitchen table. Annie saw the blood drain out of her mother’s face, and for a second she felt sorry for her. But only for a second. “Don’t you need to get to work?” her mother finally said. Tom was a UPS driver. Annie was used to seeing him in his brown uniform after work. His shirt and shorts were extra tight. “Yup,” Tom said, standing so quickly he sloshed coffee on the table. “I better get going, kids. I’ll be late.” Annie watched Tom and her mother exchange glances as Tom hurried past her toward the front door, grabbing his shoes on the way. She thanked God there was no good-bye kiss between them, or she might throw up right there. “Mom,” William said, “Tom’s going to take me fishing after school!” “That’s nice, honey,” his mom said vacantly. “Go brush your teeth,” Annie said to William, assuming the vacated role of adult. “We’ve got to go.” William bounded upstairs. Annie glared at her mother, who said, “Annie…” “Are you going to marry him?” Her mother sighed, seemed to search for words. She raised her hands slowly, then dropped them to her sides as if the strings had been snipped. That answered Annie’s question. “You told me…” “I Annie got up from the table and took her and William’s bowls to the sink, rinsed them out. When she was through, her mother was still standing there, hadn’t moved. “Oh, I understand,” Annie said, then gestured toward the stairs. “But William doesn’t. He thinks he’s got a new dad.” Her mother took a sharp breath as if Annie had slapped her. Annie didn’t care. “We’ll talk later,” her mother said, as Annie avoided her and went straight outside through the mudroom to wait for William in the yard. She knew her mom would be heartbroken because she hadn’t kissed her good-bye. AT NOON, Annie waited with William at the front of the school for Tom. They looked for his pickup and never saw it. When a UPS truck came down the block, William pumped his fist and growled, But Tom wasn’t driving the truck, and it never slowed down. After taking Tom’s fishing rod and vest, Annie and William walked along the damp shoulder of the state highway out of town. Annie led. She knew there was a creek up there somewhere. A woman driving a little yellow pickup pulled over in front of them. “Where are you two headed with such dogged determination?” the woman asked in a high-pitched little-girl voice. Annie disliked her immediately. She was one of those older women who thought they were young and pert instead of squat and wide. “Fishing,” Annie said. “Up ahead, on the creek.” The woman said her name was Fiona, and she delivered rural mail, and she would be going that direction if they needed a ride. Even though William shook his head no, Annie said, “Thank you.” While they drove deep into the forest and began to see glimpses of a stream through the trees, Fiona never stopped talking. She acted as if she was interested in them, but she wasn’t, Annie thought. Fiona was determined to convince them that delivering mail was a very important job and not just anybody could do it. As if she expected Annie to say, “Wow-you deliver the “Can you let us off here?” Annie asked at no particular landmark except that she could see the creek. “Are you sure this is okay with your folks?” Fiona asked, well after the time she should have. “Sure,” Annie lied. They thanked her and got out. William was concerned that the fish would be able to smell him because his clothes were now reeking of perfume, but Annie convinced him fish couldn’t smell. Not that she knew anything about fish. MAYBE, ANNIE THOUGHT, the men didn’t notice William and her because the dark green plastic they wore over their clothes blended in so well with the color of the heavy brush. Maybe, the men had looked around for another vehicle, and not having seen one, assumed no one else was there, certainly not on foot. But Annie could certainly see Everything was wet and dark under the dripping canopy of trees, and it smelled of pine, loam, and the spray of the creek. Other than the white car, the campground looked empty. There was a picnic table next to the SUV, and a low black fire pit. Annie watched as the driver got out and shut his door, looked around the campsite, then turned back to the vehicle. He was middle-aged or older, lean, fit, and athletic in his movements. He had short white hair and a tanned, thin face. Three more doors opened, and three more men climbed out. They wore casual rain jackets, one wore a ball cap. The man in the ball cap put a six-pack of beer on the picnic table and pulled out four bottles and twisted the tops off, putting the tops into his jacket pocket. The men seemed to be comfortable with one another, she thought, the way they nodded and smiled and talked. She couldn’t hear what they said because of the sound of the rushing creek behind her. The Ball Cap Man offered bottles of beer to everyone, and took a long drink of his own. They didn’t sit down at the table-too wet, she thought-but stood next to each other. Annie felt William tugging on her arm through the plastic. When she looked over, he gestured back toward the path they had come by, indicating he wanted to go. She gave him a What happened next was terrifying. The Driver circled the group of men, as if returning to the car, then he suddenly wheeled and jabbed a finger into the chest of a wavy-haired man and said something harsh. The wavy-haired man stumbled back a few feet, obviously surprised. As if a signal had been given, both the Ball Cap Man and a tall, dark man stepped back, and stood shoulder to shoulder with the Driver, facing down the wavy-haired man, who pitched his beer bottle aside and held his hands out, palms up, in an innocent gesture. “Annie…” William pleaded. She saw the Dark Man pull a pistol from behind his back, point it at the Wavy-Haired Man, and fire three times, Annie caught her breath, and her heart seemed to rush up her throat and gag her. She felt a sharp pain in her arm, and for a second she thought that a stray bullet had struck her, but when she glanced down she saw it was William’s two-handed grip. He had seen what happened in the campsite, too. It wasn’t like television or the movies, where a single shot was a deafening explosion and the victim was hurled backwards, dead, bursts of blood detonating from his clothing. This was just a At the water’s edge, she looked over her shoulder, realizing they had lost the path and could go no farther. “No,” she yelled at William. “Not this way. Let’s get back on the trail!” He turned to her panicked, eyes wide, his face drained of color. Annie reached for his hand and tugged him along, crashing back through the brush toward the path. When they reached it, she looked back toward the campsite. All three men stood over the Wavy-Haired Man, firing pistols into his body. Suddenly, as if Annie’s own gaze had drawn him, the Driver looked up. Their eyes locked, and Annie felt something like ice-cold electricity shoot through her. It burned the tips of her fingers and toes and momentarily froze her shoes to the ground. William screamed, SHE RAN like she had never run before, pulling her brother along behind her, yelling, “Stay with me!” They kept to the trail that paralleled the lazy curves of Sand Creek. The stream was on their left, the dark forest on their right. Wet branches raked her face and tugged at her clothing as she ran. She could hear her own screams as if someone else was making them. William was crying, but he was keeping up. He gripped her hand so tightly she could no longer feel her fingers, but she didn’t care. Somewhere, she had lost a shoe in the mud, but she never even considered going back for it, and now her left foot was freezing. How far were they from the road? She couldn’t guess. If they got to the road, there was the chance of getting a ride home with someone. William jerked to a stop so suddenly that Annie was pulled backwards, falling. Had one of the men grabbed him? No, she saw. His fly rod had been caught between the trunks of two trees. Rather than let go of it, he was trying to pull it free. “Drop it, William!” she cried. “Just drop it!” He continued to struggle as if her words hadn’t penetrated. His face was twisted with determination, his tears streaming. “LET GO!” she screamed, and he did. She scrambled back to her feet and as she did she saw a shadow pass in the trees on their right. It was the Ball Cap Man, and he had apparently found a parallel trail that might allow him to get ahead so he could cut them off. “Wait,” she said to William, her eyes wide. “We can’t keep going this way. Follow me.” She pushed herself through heavy wet undergrowth, straight at the path she had seen the Ball Cap Man running on. She hesitated a moment at the trail, saw no one, and plunged across it between two gnarled wild rosebushes, pulling William behind her. This time, she didn’t need to prompt him to keep running. They were now traveling directly away from the river through heavy timber. Annie let go of her brother’s hand, and the two of them scrambled over downed logs and through masses of dead and living brush farther into the shadows. Something low and heavy-bodied, a raccoon maybe, scuttled out of sight and parted the fronds in front of them. They left the roar of the river behind them, and it got quieter in the forest. At one point they heard a shout below them, somewhere in the trees, one of the men shouting, “Did you hear that?” William asked. She stopped, leaned back against the trunk of a massive ponderosa pine, and nodded. “Do you think they would shoot us if they found us?” She implored him with her eyes not to talk. William collapsed next to her, and for a few minutes the only sound in the forest was the steady dripping of the trees and their winded breath. Even as she recovered from exertion, the terror remained. Every tree looked like one of the men. Every shadow looked momentarily like a man with a gun. She looked down at her brother, who had his head cocked back on the trunk, his mouth slightly open. His clothes were wet and torn. She could see a cut oozing dark blood where a bare knee was exposed by an L-shaped rip. His face was pale white, streaked with dirt. “I’m sorry I brought you here,” she said. “I didn’t know what I was doing.” “They killed that man,” William said. “They shot him and shot him again.” She didn’t say, “What if they’re already up there?” She shrugged, sighed. “I don’t know.” “How will we get home?” “I don’t know.” “They just kept shooting him,” he said. “I wonder what he did to make them so mad?” THEY DIDN’T SEE the road so much as sense an opening in the canopy ahead. Annie made William squat down in the wet brush, and they remained still for a few minutes, hoping to hear the sound of a car or truck. “We’re like rabbits,” he said, “just sitting here scared.” “Shhh.” She thought she heard a motor. “Stay here.” She pushed through the low brush on her hands and knees. She could no longer feel her bare foot, which was cut and bleeding. The grass got thicker as it neared the road, and she crawled on her belly to the edge of it. For the first time since the initial Then she felt a tug on her pant leg, and gasped. “It’s just me,” William said. “Man, you jumped.” She hissed, “I told you to stay back there.” “No way,” he said, crawling up next to her. “What are we doing?” “We’re going to wait until we hear a car,” she said. “When it gets close, we’re going to jump up and try to get a ride to town.” “What if it’s the white car?” he asked. “Then we keep hiding,” she said. “I thought you heard something.” “I thought I did. Maybe not.” “Hold it,” William said, raising his head above the grass, “I hear it too.” ANNIE AND WILLIAM looked at each other as the sound slowly rose, the baritone hum of a motor spiced by the crunching of gravel beneath tires. The vehicle was coming from the wrong direction, from town instead of toward it. But Annie figured that if someone was likely to stop for them, they would be just as likely to turn around and take them home. And if the vehicle was coming from the direction of town, it was unlikely it could be the white SUV. She inched forward, parting the grass. She could feel the approach of the vehicle from the ground beneath her, a vibration that made her feel more like an animal than a girl. She saw an antenna, then the top of a cab of a pickup, then a windshield. She raised her head. It was a new-model red pickup with a single occupant. Whooping, she scrambled to her feet and pulled William along with her, and they stood in the road. At first, she wasn’t sure the driver saw her. He was going slowly, and staring out into the trees off to the side instead of at the road. But just as she began to step back toward the shoulder, the pickup slowed and she recognized the driver as Mr. Swann. Mr. Swann had once dated their mother, and although he was much older than she, and it didn’t work out, he had not been unkind to them. As Swann stopped and leaned over and opened the passenger door, Annie Taylor began to weep with absolute relief, her hot tears streaming down her face. “Whoa,” Mr. Swann said, looking them over, “are you two all right? Did you get lost out here?” “Will you please take us home?” Annie said through her tears. “What happened?” “Please take us home,” William said. “We saw a man get killed.” As William climbed into the truck, Annie heard another motor. She looked up the road where it curved to the right and could see a vehicle coming, glimpses of it flashing through the trunks of the trees. It was the white SUV. “Get on the floor,” she yelled to her brother. “It’s “Annie, what’s going on here?” Swann asked, frowning. “They want to kill us!” Annie said, hurtling inside and shutting the door behind her. She cowered with William on the floor of the pickup. “Oh, come on now,” Swann said. “Please, just drive,” Annie said, her voice cracking. “Please just drive ahead.” Swann slid the truck back into gear, and she could feel it moving, hear the gravel start to crunch. “Maybe I should just stop them and ask them what’s going on?” Swann asked. “I’m sure it’s a misunderstanding.” She looked up at Swann as he drove, saw the confusion on his face. What if the men in the SUV waved Swann down to talk? It wasn’t unusual on these back roads to see two vehicles stopped side by side as the drivers exchanged information and pleasantries. “Please don’t stop,” Annie said again. “I don’t know what’s going on,” Swann said, “but it has you two scared to death, that’s for sure.” Swann pursed his lips and looked ahead. She wished she could see how close the white SUV was, and what the men inside were doing. Instead, she wrapped her arms around William and watched Swann. “They want me to stop,” Swann said, not looking down. “Don’t. Please.” “If I don’t stop, they’ll wonder why.” Annie felt another imminent, choking cry, and tried to stifle it. The pickup slowed. She tried to push William down even farther into the floor, and herself as well. She could feel his heart beating, fluttering, where her hand held his chest. She closed her eyes, as if by not seeing the men they couldn’t look in and see “Afternoon, Mr. Singer,” Swann said as he rolled his window down. “Afternoon,” Singer said. Singer was the Driver, Annie guessed. Mr. Swann Singer said, “Hey, did you see some kids anywhere along the road?” “They yours?” Swann asked. “No, not mine. Mine are grown and married, you know that. I don’t know who they are. Me and my two compadres here were fishing and horsing around down on the river, and we scared a couple of kids. We were target shooting, and we didn’t know they were there. We think they might have thought they saw something they didn’t.” “Target shooting?” “Yeah, we try to get out every couple of months to stay sharp. Anyway, we want to make sure those poor kids know we meant no harm.” Annie cracked an eye to look at Swann. “Scared ’em pretty good, eh?” Swann said. “I’m afraid so. Anyway, we want to find them and let ’em know everything’s okay.” “Is everything okay?” Swann asked. Singer didn’t respond. “It will be when we find those kids,” another man said with a trace of a Mexican accent. Annie guessed it was the Dark Man with the mustache. “So you haven’t seen them?” Singer asked again. Swann hesitated. Annie closed her eyes again and tried to prepare to die. She didn’t hear the bulk of the conversation that followed because it was drowned out by the roar of blood in her ears, although she did hear Swann say someone had come up behind him and was waiting for him to go. “Yes,” Singer had said, “you had better go home now.” She couldn’t believe her luck-their luck-when she realized the truck was moving again. “I think you kids should stay down,” Swann said. Annie asked, “Where are you taking us?” “My place is just up the road, and I need to make a call.” “Why aren’t you taking us home?” “Because I don’t want to run into those boys again,” Swann said. “I know them from back on the force, and that story they just told me doesn’t make a lot of sense.” “That’s because we’re telling you the truth,” Annie said, feeling the tears well up in her eyes. “Maybe,” Swann said. “Keep your heads down.” Friday, 4:40 P.M. JESS RAWLINS was doing groundwork with his new horse Chile in the round pen near the corral when a new-model Lexus emerged from the timber on the southern hill and drove down the access road toward his ranch house. It caught him by surprise because he was concentrating so fully on his horse, a fourteen-hand three-year-old red dun. He had fallen into a kind of hyperalert trance, mesmerized by the rhythmic sound and cadence of her hoofbeats. Jess had forgotten how much he loved the sound of hoofbeats, the solid soft pounding rhythm of them, how he could feel them through the ground as the eleven-hundred-pound animal trotted, how the sound lulled him, took him back. A few moments before, when he was lunging her to the right, he’d picked out the sound of a series of sharp rapid-fire percussions along with the thump of her hoofbeats, a snapping sound that alarmed him for a moment before he realized they were from far up the valley and had nothing to do with the gait of his horse. He had stopped her suddenly, and she had turned nicely into an abrupt stop, facing him like she was supposed to, looking at him with both eyes, breathing hard, licking her lips with compliance. He listened and heard no more pops in the distance. If the wooded valley he lived in was indeed a saddle slope, his house and outbuildings were located just under the pommel. From there, he could see anyone coming down from the state highway toward his ranch. At dusk, he often watched mule deer graze their way to the valley floor to drink at the stream. He kissed the air and sidestepped to the right, and Chile responded instantly with the correct lead, trotting in a circle to the left on the end of the lead rope Jess held loosely in his left hand. In his right was a stiff coil of rope used to signal the mare, keep the invisible pressure on her to keep moving in a nice smooth stride. Sometimes, to get her attention, he whapped the rope against the leg of his Wranglers. Mostly, though, all he had to do was raise it to get her moving. He had never hit her with it. As Chile circled, Jess stayed on her left flank. Jess was falling madly in love with this horse, a short, stout, heavily muscled little mare with a kind eye and two white socks. People who watched horse races and thought horses should be aquiline and sleek would find Chile ugly. Jess didn’t. She was a classic foundation quarter horse, a cow horse. In his peripheral vision, he noted the slow progress of the car. The Lexus crawled down the access road, the afternoon sun gleaming off the windshield and the chrome grille, the car slowing even more as it neared a cow and calf in the meadow, as if the driver expected the cattle to bolt across the road. There was only one way into the Rawlins Ranch from the state highway, and the road ended at the ranch house. Jess Rawlins was tall, stiff, all sharp angles: bony elbows and knees, prominent hawklike nose, pronounced cheekbones. The only thing soft about him, his wife Karen told him once, were his eyes and his heart, but not in a good way. When the Lexus parked between his house and the barn and the driver’s side door opened, Jess shot his first glance over while Chile circled. The man who climbed out was slim, well built, with thick blond hair and a bristly mustache. He was wearing khakis and a purple polo shirt that draped well on his frame. He looked like a golfer, Jess thought. No, worse. A Realtor. Jess brought the coil of rope down sharply, and Chile stopped. Like all horses, it didn’t take much to convince her to stop working. Jess liked the way she looked at him, though, waiting for the next command. Sometimes, horses could stare with contempt. Chile, though, respected him. He respected her back. He thought, Jess waited for the man to approach the round pen. Then he heard it again, two distinct The man-his name was Brian Ballard, Jess recognized him from his photo in the real estate pages of the newspaper-appeared not to hear the gunshots. Instead, he stopped on the other side of the railing and put a tasseled loafer on the lower rail and draped his arms over the top rail. As he did it, Jess’s eyes slid from Brian Ballard to the Lexus and saw the profile of the passenger inside for the first time. It was her, all right. “How’s it going, Mr. Rawlins?” Ballard asked with false good cheer. “I see you’re training a horse there.” “Groundwork,” Jess said. “I have to hand it to the new breed of horse trainers out there who stress groundwork above all. They know their stuff, and they’re right.” He looked over at Brian Ballard: “What do you want?” Ballard smiled and his eyebrows arched and his mouth pursed. He was uncomfortable, despite the smile. “I don’t know much about horses. I’m allergic to them.” “Too bad.” “I’m Brian Ballard, but I guess you know that.” “I do.” “I’m pleased to meet you, finally,” Ballard said, nodding toward Jess. “This is a pretty place, all right.” Jess didn’t move. “I saw Herbert Cooper in town this morning. He said you had to lay him off at the ranch.” Herbert Cooper had worked for Jess for thirteen years. The day before, Jess had to tell his longtime foreman that he couldn’t pay his wages anymore, that there was not enough income for both bank loan payments and an employee. It was one of the hardest things Jess had ever had to do, and he hadn’t slept well. Plus, it was calving season, and he was now on his own. Jess noticed Ballard looking at Chile. Jess could tell what he was thinking, and it made him angry. “This horse came to me as payment for leasing out a quarter section for grazing,” Jess said, wishing he hadn’t said it. There was no need to justify himself, certainly not to this man. “Oh.” Jess nodded toward the Lexus. “I see Karen in there. She put you up to this?” Ballard looked back as if confirming it was Karen in his car, even though he knew it was. It took a moment for Ballard to turn back to Jess. “Let’s leave her out of this, if you don’t mind. There’s no reason you and I can’t be gentlemen about this.” Jess said, “There are plenty of reasons. So why don’t you get back in your car and get the hell off of my ranch?” “That’s not necessary,” Ballard said, his eyes almost pleading. Jess felt sorry for him for a moment. Then it passed. “You can get out the same way you came in,” Jess said. “Remember to close the gate.” “Look,” Ballard said, showing Jess the palms of his hands. “Everybody knows the situation out here. It’s a struggle, a real hard struggle. You had to let Herbert go, and everybody else is”-he searched for the right word and came up with a wrong one-“ Jess paused, felt his chest tighten. He looked down at his hand and saw that his fingers were white from gripping the lunging rope so tightly that it hurt. “To have a man-to-man discussion,” Jess said, “you need two men. So we’re out of luck in your department. I’ve asked you twice to leave. If I have to say it a third time, it’ll be from behind the sights of my Winchester.” Ballard’s mouth opened as if to speak, but nothing came out. Jess glared at him, heat rising. Then he took a step forward in order to tie Chile up to the rail. When he moved, Ballard flinched and took his foot off the rail. “You don’t need to threaten me. I can buy this place from you or I can wait and buy it from the bank.” “Git,” Jess said. Brian Ballard backed up, then turned. He said over his shoulder, “You’re making a mistake, Jess. I’ll be more than fair, I told you that.” Jess tied up Chile and watched Ballard walk toward his Lexus. He saw Karen turn in her seat toward Ballard as he opened the door. Jess could tell what she was saying by the tilt of her head. He heard Ballard say, “No. You tell him if that’s what you want.” Ballard swung into the vehicle and made a U-turn in the gravel, and Jess watched the car drive away for a while up the hill on the access road. It took him a few minutes before his hands stopped trembling. “We need to get a saddle on you,” he told Chile, running his hand along her stout neck. JESS WATCHED them go over the back of the horse. The afterimage of Karen’s profile seemed to hang in the dust whorls left by the tires. So that was Brian Ballard, the man she left him for. The man she married after him. He had not fought back when she announced she was leaving, said she had outgrown him and that he not only hadn’t kept up but had regressed. Said that just being on the ranch with him made her claustrophobic. That he had to get past what had happened to their son. That he was an anachronism. How could he fight that? Karen got their savings and the feed store in town, which she promptly sold. And she got the Lincoln and his horse. Sold them, too. Jess kept the ranch. THE TREK up the hill and through the timber to the mailbox seemed longer than it ever had, he thought, and his legs felt heavier. For years, Jess never got the mail. Herbert or Margie did it, or another ranch hand, or his wife Karen did it. She used to love to get the mail. Later, he found out why. To make matters worse, it seemed that more often than not he ran into Fiona Pritzle, the woman who had the rural mail route, at his mailbox. She was a vicious gossip, he thought, the woman who had spread the word when his wife left, and for whom. Fiona would feign concern for his health and well-being, and try to pump him for news and information. Had he heard from his ex-wife? Did he know she had moved back to town? Was it true the ranch was in trouble? So when he heard a vehicle coming up the road, he stopped in the wet foliage. There had been a time when there was little traffic on the road, and Jess knew everyone on it. In fact, there was a time, in Pend Oreille County, when everybody knew Jess Rawlins and Jess knew everyone else. That was when the lumber mills were running and the silver mines were hiring. It was rough, isolated, fiercely rugged country then, and the people who lived there were subjugated by the mountains, the weather, the deep forests, the isolation, and the unenlightened corporations who came there to extract everything they could, including the goodwill and civility of their employees. The profligate, rough-and-tumble wildness of the environment and atmosphere beat people down. The exception were people like Jess, families like the Rawlinses, who had come from poor stock themselves but managed to build an enterprise-the Rawlins Ranch- rather than simply remove commodities to be shipped elsewhere. They built their own legacy, and by doing it moved up in status and respectability. Unlike the logging company managers and mining executives who were sent to the Idaho panhandle from places like Pennsylvania and West Virginia to do their time and to take as much as they could as ruthlessly and efficiently as possible so they could put in for a transfer to a more hospitable post, the Rawlinses built a bulwark and established a heritage that was shared and celebrated. Jess grew up feeling like a local hero. His grandfather and father had bequeathed the mantle of exceptionalism; that he was of the people, not better than them, but he had a special The Rawlins Ranch was all the more admirable because North Idaho was not optimal cattle country. There were too many trees, not enough prairie and pasture. It rained too much. Unlike the vast ranches to the south or in bordering states Montana, Wyoming, and eastern Oregon, the Rawlins Ranch had to be carved out of the forest and managed carefully like a temperamental machine. They couldn’t just let cattle go to forage for themselves for months, like ranchers could do in more wide-open country. If they did, the cattle got lost in the timber. So they moved their herds from park to park, plateau to plateau, keeping careful count. The rain and lushness of the terrain invited hoof-rot and disease born of moisture, so the cattle needed to be inspected and handled more than usual. Jess’s grandfather had established the procedure for counting, moving, and inspecting his cattle. From Washington State he’d bought seed bulls who were bred for wet ground and heavy snow. The quality of Rawlins beef became widely praised, and the ranch prospered due to its management. The high price of beef helped, too. Jess, like his father and grandfather, felt proprietary toward the valley, the community, and the ranch. After serving in the Army, he had no doubt, ever, that he would return. Which he did. Jess often wondered if he had made the right choice, knowing what he knew now. He also wondered if he’d been the catalyst for things to come, for the decline. Had the spark of exceptionalism died in him? He’d been unable to pass along the sense of eminence he had always felt. Maybe, he thought, it had just played out. FIONA PRITZLE, behind the wheel of her little yellow Datsun pickup, had a stern, pinched look on her face until she saw him. The change in her demeanor was instantaneous, though for Jess her self-focused scowl remained as an afterimage, even when she stopped at his mailbox and climbed out and grinned at him. How did she know when he would be there, he wondered? “Catalogs,” she said, “three of ’em today. Two for women’s clothing, so you’re still on their list even though they don’t know…” He looked at her grimly. “And a property tax notice, again,” she said in her little-girl voice, eyeing him suspiciously. “I know I’ve delivered a couple of these to you already.” He nodded, nothing more. “Jess, I saw Herbert in town.” “He moved to town,” Jess said. “He waved, but he didn’t stop. Is something wrong?” She looked at him suspiciously, then gathered up his mail in a stack and handed it to him. “This road is getting busy,” she said. “I almost rear-ended a vehicle back there when I came around the corner.” He raised his eyebrows, hoping his lack of response would signal her to go away. She had designs on him, he knew. He was over women, though. “A Cadillac Escalade with three men in it. They were barely crawling down the road, looking into the trees.” He shrugged. “Brand-new Idaho plates. Probably more transplants.” “There’s a lot of them moving up here,” he said. “Most of them are retired cops from L.A.,” she said, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “I’ve heard that there’s more than two hundred of them overall, and about a dozen on my route alone.” “How do you know that?” She puffed up. “I put the pension checks in their mailboxes, and police newsletters, things like that. Some of them meet me every day, like you. A couple of real nice guys, real personable. But some of them are just like hermits or something. Like they don’t want to mix with somebody like me. If it wasn’t for their mail, I don’t know if they’d ever come out of their houses. They call North Idaho ‘Blue Heaven’ at the LAPD. Did you know that?” Herbert had told him that, but he didn’t want to bring it up. Jess didn’t object to the idea of ex-policemen moving in. In fact, if he had to choose the kind of people to move into the valley-not that he “Hundreds,” she said. “Buying up everything. But it sort of makes you feel safer, doesn’t it?” Jess said nothing. She went on, “But I don’t like the way some of them keep to themselves, you know? Like they think they’re better than everybody else. Why did they move here if they just wanted to keep to themselves? They could have moved anywhere for that. You’d think they’d want to be friendlier, you know, since a lot of them are divorced and all. I mean: “I better get back,” he said, gesturing toward his mail as if he couldn’t wait to read through it. “You wouldn’t believe how many retirement checks and LAPD newsletters I deliver these days,” she said, repeating herself. “They’re all up and down this road.” “Then you better get after it,” he said cheerfully. She reacted as if he’d slapped her. “Just being neighborly,” she huffed. “I guess I caught you in one of your moods, Jess.” He didn’t like it when she used his first name, or that she studied his mail before she gave it to him. She was too familiar with him, he thought. She should be more professional. Her back tires spit gravel as she roared away. He had turned back to his road when he heard another vehicle coming. She was right about the traffic. He looked over his shoulder and saw a red pickup with a male driver. Jess didn’t know him. As he passed, the driver appeared to be talking to someone or something in the passenger seat or on the floor, but Jess saw no passengers, and no dog. He waved at the driver, but the driver didn’t wave back. These new ones didn’t wave back. As he walked down the hill toward his ranch house, he listened to the silence and the soft watery sound of a breeze in the treetops. He heard no more shots. Friday, 4:45 P.M. EDUARDO VILLATORO pressed his nose against the window of the Southwest Airlines flight to Spokane from Los Angeles, via Boise. Below him was an ocean of green broken up only by lozenge-shaped lakes that reflected the sky, and snowcapped mountains that rose in the distance, the tops of the peaks at eye level as the 737 descended. He had only seen so much green once in his life, years before, when he had flown to El Salvador to bring back his mother. But that was jungle, and this was not, and El Salvador had silvery roads slicing through the green and an ocean holding it in, and he could see no roads, and that realization began to create anxiety in him that was only released, slightly, when squares and circles of farmland finally appeared and the flight attendant asked the passengers to put their tray tables in the full-upright and locked position. He had been keenly aware as he boarded the connecting flight in Boise that he was the only passenger wearing a suit, even though it was his old, lightweight brown one. He had removed his tie on board, folded it neatly, and put it in his pocket. The other passengers, mostly young families and retirees, seemed to pay no attention to him, but in a deliberate way. He was very aware of He raised his arm and shot his cuff to look at his new gold watch. He was grateful he didn’t need to reset the time, since Spokane was Pacific time as well. He didn’t yet know how his watch worked. There were several knobs and buttons, and he assumed he would need to work a combination of them to reset the time, date, alarm, and other functions if he needed to. The dial would light up at night, someone pointed out to him. Unfortunately, he had left the instructions for the watch in the packaging it came in, after he’d opened it and slipped it on to the apparent delight of his former coworkers, who clapped while he did so. They had all contributed to buy the retirement gift, and Celeste, his longtime partner, had taken it to a jeweler to have the back inscribed: FOR 30 YEARS OF SERVICE WHILE WAITING for his two bags to arrive on one of three carousels in the airport, Villatoro continued to study the people around him. Families had rejoined, and there was excited chatter. A soldier in desert fatigues had returned from Iraq, greeted by balloons, hand-drawn posters, and his extended family. Villatoro nodded at him, said, “Thank you for your service.” The marine nodded back. If Villatoro were to characterize the residents in a general way, he would say they were plainspoken and blunt. Flinty, maybe. He noted how many of the men wore cowboy hats and big buckles and pointed boots, and how it looked like clothing on them and not a costume. Women and children wore bright colors and opened their mouths wide when they talked, as if it didn’t matter to them if anyone heard their conversations. As the bags began to spit out onto the carousel, he saw the flashing of their clear blue eyes. At the rental car counter, a boy with moussed hair and a starched white shirt and tie told him the company could upgrade his reservation from a compact to a midsize for only five dollars more a day. “No thank you.” “But it looks like you’ll be in the area for a week,” the boy said, looking at the reservation on his computer monitor. “You might be more comfortable in a larger car. I’m sure your company would understand.” “No,” Villatoro said. “There is no company. I’m retired, as of two days ago. The compact, please.” The boy looked hurt. Villatoro could see a blackboard in the office behind the counter that listed all of the employees by name with check marks to indicate how many upgrades they’d sold. He looked at the boy’s name tag, saw his name was Jason, and saw that Jason was leading the pack. “Arcadia, California,” Jason said as he keyed Villatoro’s license number and address into the computer. “Never heard of it.” “It’s a small town,” Villatoro said. “About fifty thousand people.” “Is it near L.A.?” Villatoro smiled bitterly. “It was swallowed by L.A. like a snack.” The boy didn’t know how to answer that, and Villatoro wished he hadn’t said it. Too much information. Jason said, “You wouldn’t believe how many folks from L.A. we rent to.” “Really?” Villatoro said. “A ton of them have moved up here,” Jason said, pushing the button to print out the contract. “Have you ever been here before?” “Spokane?” Villatoro said. Jason corrected his pronunciation, “It’s ‘Spoke-Ann,’ Mr. Villatoro, not ‘Spoke-Cain.’ ” “And it’s ‘Vee-Ah-Toro,’ not ‘VILLA-toro,’” Villatoro said back, smiling. WITH HIS KEYS and an agreement for a red Ford Focus in his hand, Villatoro started to pull his bags through the door to the rental lot but stopped until Jason looked over. “May I please get a map to Kootenai Bay?” “I’m sorry,” Jason said, tearing one off a pad and using a highlighter pen to mark the route. “It’s easy. You just take a right out of the airport and follow the signs to I-90 East.” “Thank you,” Villatoro said. Jason handed him the map and a thick, four-color real estate booklet. “I assume you’re looking for property.” “No,” Villatoro said, taking the booklet anyway, “I’m here on business.” “Really? What do you do? I thought you said you were retired?” “I am,” Villatoro said, not really lying, just not telling the entire story. The boy was more forward than he thought proper. “Oh,” Jason said, puzzled. As he walked out onto the sun-baked lot, Villatoro thought he’d said half-again too much, and chastised himself. VILLATORO POINTED his little red Ford Focus toward the mountains to the east and eased onto the interstate through tree-shrouded on-ramps. He passed a large sign and fountain that read: WELCOME TO THE INLAND NORTHWEST Spokane itself seemed surprisingly old and industrial, the downtown buildings rising out of the trees with a sense of purpose that had likely been forgotten, Villatoro thought. He saw an exit for Gonzaga University-he had heard of it, something about basketball-and another that said Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, was only fourteen miles away. As he drove he pushed the scan button on the AM radio in the car. As it swept the stations, he heard snippets of Rush Limbaugh, Laura Schlesinger, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, and Mark Fuhrman, famous from the O. J. Simpson trial, who obviously had a local talk show. That discovery astonished him. Acres of outlet malls marked his entrance into Idaho, as well as strip malls that looked just like the strip malls in L.A., with the same fast-food places and convenience stores. He had replaced palm trees with pine trees, but this was all familiar. In a way, he was relieved. But when he turned north at Coeur d’Alene, the strip malls thinned, and the forest seemed to shoulder its way back toward the road, as if to intimidate the drivers, he thought. It certainly worked with him. Forty miles later, the trees broke, and he was on a long bridge crossing a huge lake, the sun streaming through the windshield with an intensity he wasn’t used to. On the other side of the lake, twinkling through a pine forest, was the town of Kootenai Bay, and beyond that, thirty-five miles north, was Canada. THE DOWNTOWN was small, the vestige of another era, when it was more of a railroad outpost than what it had become. The primary route into Kootenai Bay stretched three tree-covered blocks, then ended with a sharp turn to the left. Old brick buildings-none above two levels-sported signs for snowboards, espresso, bicycling, fishing, real estate. He turned right, away from downtown, dipped under a railroad trestle, and emerged on the lakefront near the Best Western where he had a reservation. Pulling under a slumping veranda, he uncoiled from the small car and stretched, heard his spine pop with a sound like shuffling cards. The boy at the car rental counter had been right, he thought. A larger car would have been better for his back. As he entered the small lobby, he instinctively hit the remote control lock button on his key ring. Three people were waiting to check in before him, two large men with crew cuts and a short, heavy woman with big hair and lime green shorts. All three held sixteen-ounce cans of Budweiser and spoke loudly, and he gathered they were in town for some kind of reunion. While he waited, Villatoro looked over the rack of real estate brochures near the door, and took several because they contained maps of the area. When the guests got their keys and left to find their rooms, Villatoro stepped up to the counter. The check-in clerk was flustered from the three conventioneers, and she blew back a strand of graying hair away from her face and sighed loudly. “You’d think they’d put another person on the desk at check-in time, wouldn’t you?” she said. “Especially when there’s a Navy ship crew reunion in town.” He shrugged, and smiled. Checking in four guests didn’t seem to be an exhausting task. She nodded at the brochures he had picked up. She was in her late forties, he guessed, and had lived a hard life. Blooms of small threadlike veins mapped her cheeks. Alcohol. Nevertheless, she had an attractive, open face and smile. She said, “A girlfriend of mine sold her house for $189,000 last week, and the guy who bought it resold it the next day, “Goodness,” Villatoro said. “Damn right,” she said, finding his reservation card. “Makes me wonder what my place is worth. I bought it for forty grand twenty-five years ago.” These people, he thought, talk to you like they’ve known you all their lives. “Probably a lot,” he said, thinking how familiar it sounded. His own community was filled with tales like that, as longtime homeowners sold their homes to new residents for three or four times what they had originally paid. “Business or pleasure?” she asked, looking up at him. He felt her eyes sweep over his wrinkled brown suit, his cream-colored shirt, his olive skin. “Business,” he said. “What kind of business?” she asked pleasantly. “Unfinished business,” he said, a little amused at how it sounded. “Sounds interesting and mysterious.” She laughed. “Come on, fess up.” He felt his face flush. “I’m retired,” he said. He was still having trouble actually saying it without being self-conscious. It reminded him of the weeks after his wedding thirty-two years ago, when he stumbled as he introduced Donna as “my wife.” It just didn’t sound natural at the time, just as retirement didn’t sound natural now. “How long?” He flushed. “Two days. I was a police detective in Arcadia, California. ” As soon as he said it he didn’t know why he had volunteered the information. “You have a badge and a gun?” she asked, making conversation. “Not anymore.” He was very conscious of not having either. Like he was walking around without pants. Not that he’d ever drawn his gun, except at the range. She scribbled something on the reservation card. “You held this with a credit card,” she said. “You want to keep it on that card?” “Yes,” he said. “Do you have a real estate agent yet? I can recommend a couple of good ones.” “Excuse me?” She looked at him. “I assume you’re looking for a house or land up here. You don’t need to sneak around. Half of the guests who stay here are looking to buy and retire. And believe me, not all of the real estate agents are trustworthy. There are some real crooks, and they don’t care if you’re a cop. Or an ex-cop. They’re used to ex-cops, believe you me.” “I’m not interested in retiring here,” Villatoro said, somewhat defensively. “Hmmm.” She clearly wasn’t sure she believed him. “Mr. Mysterious, you are.” “No one ever said that before.” “You seem like a nice guy. How about I cut you a deal, then,” she said, almost whispering. “I’ll give you the AAA rate instead of the rack rate. Saves you $20 a night.” He wanted to refuse. But $20 a night for six nights would be helpful. “Thank you,” he said. “You bet, Mr. Villatoro.” She pronounced it “VILLA-torro.” IN HIS ROOM, which was on the lower of two floors, Villatoro opened his curtains and looked out. While the hotel itself was tired and dowdy, the view was magnificent. Through a sliding glass door was a lawn that led to a beach, and a marina half-filled with boats. The lake was smooth as a tabletop all the way to the mountains on the other side that were white with snow. The afternoon rain clouds opened up, and columns of sun lined up across the horizon. He expected an orchestra to swell at the sight. He dug in his pocket for his cell phone and powered it up. He had forgotten to turn it back on after the airplane landed, to check for messages. Maybe something from his wife, he hoped. There was no signal. He had not even considered this possibility. He tossed the phone on the dresser. He turned and looked around his room. Nothing special. A television, two double beds with worn bedspreads, a telephone on the desk with a phone book no bigger than a quality paperback beside it. Faded prints of elk, deer, and geese were on the walls. Sitting on the too-soft bed, he opened his briefcase. After placing the hinged photos of his wife and daughter on the bed stand, he pulled out a manila file and laid it near the pillow. The file was two inches thick, the edges worn, the tab stained by his own fingerprints. The writing on the tab was smeared, but he remembered sitting at his desk, eight years before, and inscribing: SANTA ANITA RACETRACK Case File: 90813A This is what had brought him to Kootenai Bay. This was the unfinished business. This is what had imposed such a strain on his marriage and family and the last few years in the department. The file contained the black cloud that loomed over him, blocking sunshine, preventing him from truly retiring and starting his new life. Eduardo Villatoro got up and went to the sliding glass door and looked out on the lake and across it to the mountains. What a different world it was than the one he had left that morning. He could not imagine fitting into this world, or wanting to. He |
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