The Wilding Probate: A Bucky McCrae Adventure

by D. J. Butler

  I yanked at my hand, trying to squeeze it out of the zip tie, but no luck. Spiraling back into a sitting position, I tried to put my shoulder belt on with my broken arm, but no luck there, either.

  At least I could see ahead of the plane. If death was going to take me in the form of a stand of pines trees, I’d see it coming.

  But I didn’t see death. Instead, I saw the sheriff’s truck.

  The pickup swerved out in front of us, several car lengths ahead. And then Sheriff Sutherland hit his brakes, and the truck slowed…heading straight back toward our propeller.

  “He’s trying to force us off the road.” Indra shook his head. “What a waste of time.”

  It didn’t feel like a waste of time to me. It felt like madness. I practically crawled up the wall of the cabin, trying to back away from the approaching pickup.

  “Stop!” I shouted.

  Indra laughed and accelerated.

  The truck came closer…

  Indra laughed louder…

  And the sheriff swerved left, off the runway. He was again out of my field of vision, pinned against the right wall as I was, and I had a sudden terrible image of his truck crashing into a tree or boulder beside the airstrip and bursting into flame.

  “That’s why you buy insurance,” Indra said. “See?”

  I unwound myself back into kneeling position. Since I couldn’t work the shoulder belt anyway, I might as well see what was happening.

  The SUVs were behind. One of them had stopped at the hangar and I saw people entering the building. It was too far away, and we were rattling too much, for me to make out if Rainbow Wilding was one of them. The second SUV chased after us.

  But just behind the plane came the sheriff’s truck. I could tell the truck from the SUV because, just as I looked at it, the sheriff hit his sirens and flashing lights.

  In response, Indra accelerated. We started to pull away from the sheriff.

  “Please,” I said.

  “Really?!” Indra laughed. “You think I can stop now, and just let you out? Ha!”

  He was right. There had been a point of no return somewhere, and he was past it. Maybe it had been the first death, Nick’s. Or maybe before that, Evil’s kidnapping. Maybe the point of no return had been years ago.

  It didn’t matter now.

  The sheriff’s truck burst forward and right, pulling up alongside the plane. As he pulled even with me and below me, I saw him through his window—his hat was off, he was hunkered over the wheel, and the big-toothed snarl on his face made him look like an animal. But a friendly one.

  He looked up as he passed and nodded at me.

  I knew what he wanted. And I didn’t think I could do it.

  The truck pulled forward, slightly, but then paced us. Its bed was underneath and just outside the door on my side of the plane.

  I looked under my armpit and saw the end of the runway approaching, fast. Beyond its end the meadow continued a short distance, ending in a dark meandering line in the grass that might be a creek. Beyond that line stood pine trees.

  I needed a knife. Or wire cutters. I needed to somehow cut the thick zip tie around my wrist. Of course, even if I’d had a knife, I wouldn’t have been able to use it. My right arm was in a cast, and there was no way I could bend it around to get to the wrist strap to which I was tied.

  I stood. In the cabin, that meant pressing my head and shoulders against the ceiling.

  “Sit down,” Indra growled. He pushed me.

  I fell back, but not back onto the seat. One knee fell down between the seats, and my left knee was bent up, my left foot on the cabin floor. I was positioned like I was waiting to take a football snap, with my left hand up in the air, to signal when I had the ball.

  Only this was no game.

  Sliding around onto my right knee, I raised my left foot, and I just managed to get it onto the handle of my door. Dragging my foot down, I brought the door handle with it.

  The door opened.

  Wind had already been whistling in the cockpit because of the window Indra had shot out. Now it became a huge whoosh.

  “Sit down!”

  There was a note of panic in Indra’s voice, and he punched me as he screamed. The punch hit me right at the base of the skull, what they call a rabbit punch. My vision went black for a moment, and I swooned.

  But then I came back, and I lurched forward. I was awkward and off balance, but I had only one shot. Kicking with both my legs, I threw myself out of the open door.

  I fell, but only the length of my arm.

  The zip tie caught me. I screamed. My shoulder felt like it was going to disconnect completely from my body. I slammed against the side of the plane.

  Cold liquid splashed on my shirt. It smelled strongly of gasoline, and I realized a stream was sputtering out of the plane.

  Indra swerved left and right. Sheriff Sutherland tried to swerve with him, but for long moments I saw speeding asphalt flash beneath my feet.

  The zip tie didn’t break. But the handle I was tied to suddenly did. I fell—

  And slammed into the truck.

  I didn’t quite land in the bed. One leg hit the side of the pickup’s bed as I crashed into it, and I screamed again, feeling my leg break. My back landed flat, mercifully, and then my head bounced off the plastic liner of the truck’s bed.

  Sheriff Sutherland braked.

  I slammed up against the steel toolbox bolted in just behind the truck’s back seat, and then the truck spun. I crunched into one wall of the bed, and then the other as the sheriff fishtailed.

  Then I bounced and flipped like a pancake done on one side. Overhead, I saw Indra Wilding’s plane take off. The truck skidded as if it was hydroplaning, and then fell and stopped with a loud splash.

  Water jumped up over me in a wave, but then receded, leaving me lying on my back. Cold, wet, out of breath, broken. Smelling like gasoline.

  And alive.

  “Bucky!”

  The sheriff made sloshing sounds as he jumped from the cab of the truck. We’d stopped in the creek, I guessed.

  He poked his head over the edge of the truck bed and jammed two fingers up against my throat, feeling for my pulse.

  “Bucky?”

  “Unnnnh,” I managed to say. It felt pretty articulate, all things considered.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Unnnnnnnnh,” I repeated, with more Ns this time.

  Sheriff Sutherland climbed up his truck’s rear tire and jumped into the back of the truck with me. “Talk to me,” he said, and then he started frisking me, checking for broken bones or major bleeding.

  “He won’t get far,” I said.

  Sheriff Sutherland chuckled. “That what you’re really worried about right now?”

  “He’s got at least one hole in his fuel tank,” I said. “Maybe more.”

  “He’s got a hole in his head,” the sheriff said. “Poor stupid bastard.”

  “You feel for him?” Then I screamed wordlessly as the sheriff touched my leg. He nodded and kept prodding.

  “Broken,” he said. “Bad. Yeah, I feel for him.”

  “He killed a lot of people.”

  “Let me tell you a secret about the law, Bucky,” he said.

  “I’m listening.” I gritted my teeth against the pain and tried not to black out.

  “Sheriffs have some discretion about what we investigate. And prosecutors have some discretion about whom they prosecute. And judges have some discretion in their decisions. Do you know why?”

  I tried to shrug, but even moving that tiny amount hurt too much. “Tell me.”

  “Mercy,” he said. “Law is a blunt instrument. And sometimes, when the law and the facts tell you that, strictly speaking, a person is supposed to be thrown in jail, mercy, compassion, and just reasonable humanity tell you that that’s not the best outcome for the case.”

  “You’re saying you would have looked the other way. For Indra Wilding.”

  “Nope. He’s killed
way too many people, so as soon as I’m sure you’re not bleeding to death I’m going to call the office and get the word out on his escape. But I’m saying, some of it was understandable. And I’d have felt bad about investigating him, and handing him over to the county prosecutor.”

  “And if he’d shot Marilyn Wilding when he was sixteen years old, and she and her boyfriends were using him as a human sex toy?”

  The sheriff nodded. “I’d have been really tempted to look the other way.”

  He opened the toolbox and took a blanket from it, wrapping the blanket around me.

  “Let’s get you into the cab,” he said.

  He dropped the tailgate but then stopped.

  One of the two SUVs pulled up. It parked politely, aiming its headlights away from us, and I could see well enough to realize it was Rainbow Wilding who got out of the back seat.

  “I guess you know I have a lot of questions to ask you,” the sheriff called to her.

  “If you want to arrest me,” she said, “I’m here to turn myself in.”

  “Are you confessing to a crime?”

  “No.”

  “You planning to leave Howard anytime soon?”

  “I’ve got a hotel room. I’ll be here as long as you need me.”

  “Then I guess I don’t need to arrest you.” The sheriff paused. “Is that true, all the stuff your brother told me?”

  “He came here to kill our stepmother. If he told you what I think he told you then yes, it was true, and as far as I’m concerned, she deserved death.”

  “You come here to kill her, too?”

  “I guessed what Indra was planning. I came here to stop him.”

  “You just said she deserved to die.”

  Rainbow hesitated before answering. “Yes. But Indra didn’t deserve to kill.”

  “I guess I know what you mean.” Sheriff Sutherland turned and looked at me, then back at Rainbow. “If one of your bodyguards would help me get this young lady into the cab of my truck, I’d be grateful.”

  Rainbow waved her hand, and a big man I hadn’t noticed, standing in the shadow of the SUV, came forward and climbed up the tire to join Sheriff Sutherland and me in the truck bed.

  “Be careful,” the sheriff said. “She’s got a broken leg, at least.”

  Rainbow’s bodyguard grunted. The two men knelt beside me to link arms under my knees and behind my back.

  “On the count of three,” Sheriff Sutherland said.

  The hospital was in Yakima, a couple hours’ drive away. I’d been there before, for stitches in my lip when I’d fallen out of a tree house as a kid, but it had been a while. A bearded nurse in teal scrubs and rubber-soled shoes gave us directions to Evil’s room.

  He was propped up on pillows and watching the TV over the door when I came in, hobbling on two crutches with one leg and one arm in a cast.

  “Rebecca,” he said.

  I gave him a one-armed hug and managed not to fall on top of him. Dad stood in the door and looked around innocently.

  Evil hit the button to summon a nurse. “Tell me what happened.”

  “Jeez, I…a lot of stuff.”

  He accepted that with a nod. “That guy Michael Fellows was the killer.”

  “His name was Indra Wilding. And there were two killers, actually. Or maybe three.” I updated Evil about Nick and Marilyn, Marilyn’s history of exploiting her stepchildren, Rainbow Wilding and her double-dealing thug Burt, my jump from the plane, and Indra Wilding’s disappearance.

  “You solved the mystery,” Evil said.

  “No. No, I didn’t. I figured out a few things along the way, and I followed a lot of wrong trails, too, but mostly I just survived the experience. For now, though…that’s enough.”

  “And have they found the guy yet? Indra Wilding?”

  “Nope. Not him, and not the plane. There’s a lot of wilderness out there, so the most likely thing is he just crashed, and no one will ever see him again. But they’re still looking.”

  “So what’s going to happen to Aaron Wilding’s money? And all that pot, for instance?”

  I laughed. “Well, Dad filed the most recent will with Judge Ybarra this morning. Turns out Indra left it in the sheriff’s truck. So it’ll have to go through probate, but odds are it will be executed, which means the executor will have to set up a trust, appoint a trustee, and so forth.”

  “A wilderness fund.”

  “Yep.”

  “This from the guy who hated hunters. I feel like I just helped Darth Vader find the rebel base. What’s this fund going to do, run around buying up land and fencing it off? Make the world safe again for mule deer?”

  I shrugged. “The trustee will decide ultimately. But the will doesn’t say anything about hunting. I think it’s going to buy private land and return it to wilderness. Probably starting by returning the Wilding property to wilderness.”

  Evil knitted his brows. “You mean this trustee might take down the barbed wire?”

  I shrugged again. “Might.”

  “What about the water? Someone will need to check the groundwater…you know, in case you were right about the aquifer. Was the Wildings’ water poisoned, after all?”

  “I don’t even know,” I said. “The sheriff’s having it tested. If it was poisoned, then Marilyn and Nick probably conspired to kill her husband. Either way…does it matter now?”

  “Might matter to the deer,” Evil said. “And to any hunter who takes water from that stream.”

  “Good point,” I agreed.

  A nurse came in and started unhooking Evil from the IV bag that had been rehydrating and medicating him.

  Evil exhaled. “Well, I think I still have about a million questions.”

  “So does Sheriff Sutherland. But he’s starting to sort it out. In the meantime, I brought you this.”

  I handed him a DVD of The Last of the Mohicans.

  Evil whistled. “I guess I better come over tonight and watch this, before it has to get turned back in.”

  “Nope,” I said, “that’s your copy. Lucky for you, the Walmart here in Yakima had it in stock.”

  Evil grinned, but his eyes were a little moist. “Thanks, Rebecca. And, Mr. McCrae?”

  “Yeah?” Dad pulled up from his very close inspection of an unplugged monitor in the corner of the room. He looked a little surprised not to be called Jim.

  “Thanks for the ride home.”

  “No rush.” Dad snorted and waved his hand. “We’re ready to go when you are.”

  I followed Dad out into the hall so Evil could get dressed.

  “Well,” I pointed out, “you lost a client.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “On the other hand, I do a little trustee work. Maybe the court will appoint me to run the trust.” He grinned. “Maybe the court will appoint you.”

  “Me? I wouldn’t know the first thing about how to manage that money.”

  Dad looked at me with a sly grin on his face. “Somehow, I think you’d manage.”

  “I hope one of us gets it,” I said. “I forgot to tell you this, but I sort of promised St. Joseph I’d let the kids at his school bowl free for a week.”

  “You promised who? The school administrators?”

  “Uh…I promised the saint.”

  “That’s just fine.” Dad laughed. “As long as you didn’t promise him his kids could eat for free.”

  Evil emerged from his room limping. He held a prescription clutched in his hand. “We could pick up a portable DVD player, watch the film on the ride home. I bet that Walmart sells them.”

  “You’re anxious,” I said. Dad moved to get his arm under Evil’s shoulder, and help him down the hall.

  “It’s a great movie.”

  We headed for the elevator.

  “You know you’re not my boyfriend,” I said.

  “You’ve been clear about that,” he said. “But you can’t blame a guy for trying.”

  “Nope,” I agreed, matching my pace with theirs as we slowly made our
way out of the hospital. “I don’t blame you at all.”

  D.J. (Dave) Butler has been a lawyer, a consultant, an editor, and a corporate trainer. His other novels include Witchy Eye, Witchy Winter, and Witchy Kingdom from Baen Books, as well as The Cunning Man, co-written with Aaron Michael Ritchey, and the pseudofantasy thriller, In the Palace of Shadow and Joy. He also writes for children: the steampunk fantasy adventure tales The Kidnap Plot, the Giant's Seat, and The Library Machine are published by Knopf. Other novels include City of the Saints from WordFire Press.

  Also by D. J. Butler

  The Witchy War

  Witchy Eye

  Witchy Winter

  Witchy Kingdom

  Serpent Daughter

  Tales of Indrajit & Fix

  In the Palace of Shadow and Joy

  The Cunning Man

  City of the Saints

  The Buza System

  Crecheling

  Urbane

  The Extraordinary Journeys of Clockwork Charlie

  The Kidnap Plot

  The Giant's Seat

  The Library Machine