by Gregory Ashe
“Be quiet,” Tean said, mostly because he didn’t think he had a gaydar.
When the BLM ranger arrived, he was driving an upgraded Jeep, and he made a big show of veering off the road, rumbling down the shale, and driving up to the mouth of the canyon. He walked past Jem and Tean without a word; Tean heard one of the other men address him as Jager.
“Asshole,” Jem said.
“Does he not understand this is a crime scene?” Tean said.
McEneany seemed to take this as a cue to assert himself because his little bantam chest puffed up and he shouted, “Keep it down, please.”
“This is what I’m talking about,” Jem muttered. “Assholes.”
All the same questions again. All the same answers. One problem, Tean understood, was that their story was so strange that it was suspicious: Antonio’s request cobbled together with the ZonaStat-H needle at the autopsy, driving down, finding the body hundreds of yards down a slot canyon that was miles deep on BLM land. At night. But another problem was that they didn’t make very good suspects, either: they had taken their discovery directly to the police.
Haggerty, McEneany, and Nobles had moved off for another conversation, McEneany shaking his head vigorously again, when Jager came over to Jem and Tean and said, “Up.”
“Excuse me?” Jem said.
Tean was already standing.
“Get your asses up.” He had to be on the hard side of forty, his dark hair thin and messy, his cheeks heavy with stubble. “Do you have a hard time hearing, son?”
“Jem, please.”
Jem got up, although he made a big show about taking his time. He’d barely gotten to his feet when Jager seized him by the arm, grabbed Tean too, and steered them toward the Jeep. Jem still hadn’t caught his footing, and he stumbled a few times, kicking rocks ahead of them.
“Hey!” McEneany was puffing up again. “Hey, what’s going on?”
Jager kept walking.
“Special Agent Jager.” That was Haggerty. The trooper’s voice was a whipcrack. “Why does it look like you’re about to put two men who haven’t been detained in your vehicle?”
Jager shoved Jem and Tean, releasing them so that they stumbled forward, and spun back.
“I thought maybe we ought to have this discussion without these two listening to every word. That might be hard for the fucking pinup boys of the local yokel brigade to understand, but if you haven’t figured it out, these two are our primary suspects.”
That, Tean understood quickly, had been a mistake. McEneany looked at Nobles. Nobles looked at Haggerty. State and local boys versus the lone fed.
“Let’s think about that for just a minute,” Haggerty said.
“I don’t need a glorified park ranger telling me how to do my job,” McEneany squeaked.
“Special Agent Jager,” Nobles said, “I think you’ve jumped the gun.”
“If I’ve got bears stealing picnic baskets,” McEneany said, “I’ll call BLM. Otherwise, I don’t need jack spit from you fellows.”
“I’m going to save you boys a lot of trouble,” Jager said. “It’s a murder on federal land. That’s a federal crime. We’ll take it from here.” Over his shoulder, he said, “Get in the back of the Jeep.” When neither Tean nor Jem moved, he barked, “Get in the fucking Jeep.”
Tean took a step, but Jem caught his arm, shaking his head.
“I’d say it’s not clear what happened.” Haggerty’s voice sounded calm, but it still had that whip-crack energy underneath it. “We’ve got a dead man who looks like he might have been trampled to death. Murder, well, that’s for the state’s medical examiner to decide.”
The only light came from the headlights of the parked vehicles. It caught Jager on one side, painting his throat, the bulge of stubble when he swallowed. “I’m talking worst-case scenario here. We’ll get these boys settled and have a lengthy conversation.”
“No,” Haggerty said. “I don’t think so.”
It took longer than that, but that was the beginning of the end. Tean and Jem ended up back at the police station in Moab, a two-story building of brick that looked bleached by the sodium lamps. The hours blurred together. Questions. No more questions. Burnt coffee. The droning of a Coke machine. Questions. No more questions. A phone ringing shrilly. Shift change, men and women coming on duty, most of them giving Jem and Tean long, considering looks. Scipio slept through most of it, his head on Tean’s Keens, snoring. Judging by the crumbs on his whiskers, Tebbs had given him some treats.
“Thank Jesus nobody decided we need these,” Jem said, whacking the cuffs attached to the bench. The cuffs spun away, jangling when they hit one of the metal supports bracketed to the wall.
Questions. More questions. No more questions. The world became unreal; exhaustion, mental and physical, caught up with Tean. He couldn’t seem to focus his eyes. He felt himself drifting, not quite able to sleep because Jem’s knee kept bouncing; the blond man seemed restless, verging on jittery. A headache had started behind Tean’s eyes, and somehow, even that felt unreal.
And then, suddenly, they were free to go.
“Are we supposed to stay in town?” Tean asked Tebbs as she walked them to the door.
Jem snorted. Scipio sneezed.
“We’ve got your contact information. If we need to follow up, we will. Thank you both for your help.”
And with that, they emerged into the mid-morning light, Tean blinking against the sudden brightness. The day was already hot, the air smelled like dust and frying doughnuts, and down the street, kids at a card table hawked arrowheads, fishing lures, and diamondback rattles. Even from a distance, Tean had his doubts about the rattles, which had a plastic shine. A banner hung across the street announcing THANK YOU PIONEERS – FIREWORKS AT 9. A second, smaller banner hung below that said FIREWORKS RESTRICTIONS STILL IN EFFECT. From the streetlights hung a parade of American flags.
They drove back to the Pinyon-Pine Lodge, and Tean paid for a second night, which seemed unjust since they hadn’t gotten to use their first night. The pet-friendly rooms were in a separate wing at the back of the ramshackle structure, probably to better contain possible outbreaks and infestations—fleas were always a risk in pet-friendly accommodations. Tean normally gave each place a thorough inspection; today, he barely had the energy to get Scipio food and water. Jem mumbled something about checking something and slipped out of the room before Tean could ask any questions. Tean collapsed on the bed and slept.
He woke to Scipio’s barking. Groaning, Tean could make out the Lab standing stiff-legged on Jem’s empty bed. Then a knock came at the door, and Tean realized that’s what had startled the Lab. The clock told him that it was barely past noon; he had slept less than two hours. His eyes were grainy as he kicked his way free of the covers. Jem had gotten himself locked out, of course. He’d left without a key, and the door had automatically locked behind him, and now he was knocking hard enough to wake the dead—which was more or less how Tean felt.
“Ok, ok, will you please calm down?” he asked as he opened the door.
Ammon stood there, his face pale except for red spots in his cheeks, his eyes fever bright.
“No,” he said, his chest heaving. “I will not fucking calm down.”
And then he took Tean’s head in his hands and kissed him.
12
Tean pulled back from the kiss, but Ammon wouldn’t let him go. They stumbled into the room together. Ammon kicked the door shut behind him. Tean caught Ammon’s wrists, trying to pull his hands away, but Ammon just kept moving until Tean bumped up against the wall. His fingers bit into Tean’s scalp. His body, so much bigger than Tean’s, pinned him against the rough log paneling.
When Ammon drew back, Tean said, “Stop, stop it.” But he wasn’t pulling on Ammon’s wrists anymore.
Ammon leaned in to kiss him again.
“Stop.”
Ammon hesitated and drew back. Scipio was still barking wildly.
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“Let go of me. Skip, enough. Ammon, I said let go.”
Scipio quieted, lay down on Jem’s bed, and still somehow managed to look ready to leap into action if Ammon made a wrong move. Ammon’s grip loosened, and he pulled his hands away, taking time to smooth Tean’s hair before releasing him completely.
“What in the world is wrong with you? Are you completely out of your mind? I told you that I don’t want—”
“Listen to me.” Ammon didn’t shout. He didn’t even raise his voice. “Do you know what happened to me today?”
“No. Why are you down here? Did Antonio—”
“I went into work to catch up on a few things. Some moron had taken a message from the Grand County Sheriff’s Department. It was sitting on my desk, one of those carbon-paper slips. ‘Dead body. Wildlife vet.’ That’s all. Do you have any idea what that did to me?”
Tean’s lips felt bruised from the kisses. He could still taste Ammon in his mouth, and the big man was still close enough that Tean was aware of his body heat. “I’m sorry; I don’t know why they did that.”
“It was an accident. A dumb mistake. Kat and I were halfway here before I got hold of someone in the sheriff’s office, although that’s probably mostly because of all the dead zones we had to drive through. After that, at least I could breathe.”
“Ammon—”
“I’m not done. The thought of losing you, that destroyed me. I’m still shaking. Look.” He held out a hand that was visibly trembling. “I’m tired of this. I’m tired of pretending we can go back to the beginning and build things up from scratch. You still have feelings for me, I know you do. And what I feel for you, I can’t even put it into words. You’re everything to me.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say. I told you that I want to be friends—”
“I moved into your building to be close to you.”
“You’re confusing physical closeness with emotional closeness. They’re not the same thing.”
“One is a starting place for the other. I know you’re scared that I’m going to hurt you again. And you’re right to be scared; I’ve treated you horribly. You’re the most important person in my life, and I’ve hurt you more than I’ve hurt anyone else. But being scared isn’t a way to move forward with your life. I’m not going to sit around and pretend to be ok while you go out with other guys, and every once in a while you and I pop popcorn and watch those weird YouTube videos of earthquakes.”
“Earthquake-related building collapses,” Tean corrected. He put a hand on Ammon’s chest and tried to force him back, but Ammon didn’t budge. “I’m sorry you feel that way, but I’ve told you how I feel, and I—”
Ammon knocked his hand away with enough force that the blow actually hurt. Then Ammon stepped in, crushing Tean against the wall again, and kissed him. It was slow. It was surprisingly gentle. And it was passionate, Ammon’s hand coming up to clutch Tean’s hair, his knee between Tean’s legs.
“That’s how you feel,” Ammon whispered as he pulled back. “You know it, and I know it. If you want to punish me, I’ll take it. I know my sex addiction has seriously affected our relationship, and I’m willing to pay whatever price I need to pay to make things right. But I’m done with the lying. You need to be honest with yourself about what you want.”
When he stepped back, giving Tean space, Scipio was on his feet again, growling.
“It’s ok,” Tean said, one hand cradling his aching wrist. “Scipio, it’s ok.”
“What’s all the racket?” Jem called from the hall. “Did you guys get out the Cheez Whiz without me—oh.” He stopped in the doorway. “How the living fuck?”
“It’s a long story,” Tean said.
At the same time, Ammon said, “Kat and I are down here to figure out who has jurisdiction over this cluster. If Antonio’s telling the truth, and it seems more and more like he might be, then this has bearing on our murder, and we want looped in.”
“Great,” Jem said. “Go play cops and robbers. We’re exhausted. We need to sleep. In our hotel room. Together.”
“Jem,” Tean said.
Ammon wore a crooked little smile. “Right. And here I thought maybe you’d want an update on that body you found last night.”
“What?” Jem said. “You already heard something? I thought that’s why you came down here, to get information.”
“Right,” Tean said, trying to keep his voice even. “I thought that’s why you came down here.”
Ammon ignored him, but Jem flashed him a look.
“On the drive, I got in touch with the sheriff, who wanted to tell me everything he could. Poor kid. Is he as young as he looks?”
“Younger,” Jem said.
“How the hell did that happen?” Ammon shook his head. “Never mind. I’ll get us a table at the restaurant. You guys clean up.” The crooked smile was back. “In your hotel room. Together.”
13
They showered, dressed, and walked Scipio. It was almost one, and the day was so hot that the air shimmered with it. The sun came down so intensely that Jem found himself squinting. He’d lived in Utah his whole life, but this part of the world was new to him, and he was surprised to find his throat and nose painfully dry. Part of his discomfort, he thought, might also have something to do with the constant, low-grade headache he was feeling. While Tean was looking in the other direction, Jem popped another of the pills; he’d scored them from a trucker a few weeks back, and he wasn’t sure what they were, but they kept him awake and working. That’s all he needed for the moment.
“I’m going to get a nosebleed,” he said as they made another loop under the scanty shade of the pinyon pines. The grass and the shade were the only place it was safe to walk the Lab, and Scipio was having a grand time investigating every inch of ground.
“Possibly.”
“I’m going to have one of those nosebleed hemorrhages and die from it.”
Tean was staring out at the horizon, where the ribbon of highway curled into blue sky. He made a vague noise of agreement.
“Did you know a million Midwesterners die from desert nosebleeds every year? They drive all the way out here with three kids shrieking in the back of the station wagon. They open the door. Step out. Boom. And the coolest part is that the blood boils away on the pavement before they hit the ground.”
“I didn’t know that,” Tean mumbled.
“Of course, the real problem is the bodies. Sand hogs can smell the blood. Porcus arizonicus. You can’t keep them away. And they’ve got those big tusks. Of course, they’re nothing compared to those desert bugs that pop your eyeballs and suck out your brain, um, Moabus brainius I think.”
“What?” Tean blinked. “What are you talking about? Moabus—that’s not a real thing.”
“Huh. I thought I read about it in one of those tourist pamphlets in the lodge.”
“Gosh, that reminds me. We didn’t bring your workbooks.”
“Oh, dang. I’m so sad. I cannot believe we did that.”
“I hear the sarcasm, and I’m ignoring it. We’re going to find some time to practice today.” A massive yawn made his jaw crack. “I completely spaced out. Come on, let’s take Scipio back to the room, and we’ll go get something to eat. Ammon’s waiting.”
“What’s going on with you?”
“I’m just tired.”
Teancum Leon was many things; one of them was a terrible liar.
When they got to the restaurant, the lunch rush was almost over. A family of seven occupied a large table at the back of the room, near the French doors that opened onto the patio, and a young couple in what appeared to be Ralph Lauren hiking gear sat at a two-top, but otherwise the only occupant was the Salt Lake City detective. Ammon already had a Coke, and he was tapping at his phone. He looked up long enough to wave, pulled out the chair next to him, and went back to his phone.
“Thanks,” Jem said, moving for the seat Ammon had indicated.
“Don’t antagonize him,” Tean said, steering Jem toward a different chair. “Is everything ok?”
Ammon grunted and kept tapping.
A girl, probably no older than sixteen, stopped at the table long enough to hand out menus and ask about drinks.
“A beer,” Jem said. “No, better yet, a whiskey.”
“I’m sorry, sir. This is a family restaurant.”
“Some families drink beer,” Jem said.
The girl’s face said she didn’t believe this.
“He’ll have a Coke,” Tean said. “I’ll have water.”
“Make sure you squeeze the water extra hard,” Jem said, “to get out any flavor that might have accidentally seeped into it.”
“Ignore him.”
“And no ice. And make sure you don’t hold the cup too long or carry it too close to your body or look at it with your eyes. You don’t want anything to change that water from room temperature.”
“Did you know,” Tean said, “that, just in terms of numbers, humans don’t rank in even the top thirty of the most murderous mammals?” He fixed Jem with a glare. “We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”
“Not this stuff again,” Ammon muttered, still typing. “Could you drop it with the weirdo act?”
Red glowed in Tean’s face, and he looked down at his lap.
“Ok, then.” The girl’s smile was too wide as she backed away. “Just the Coke and the water.”
“Done,” Ammon said, pocketing the phone and flashing Tean a smile. “Sorry about that. Kind of an evolving situation.”
“Why do you want to help us?” Jem said as he opened the menu. Pure text. Dense text. Tiny text. He flipped it closed. “Normally all you do is frown and complain and talk about how hard your life is when we do your job.”