by Kris Ashton
Sharna nodded again.
“Now I have to go to work, sweetheart. God knows I wish I didn’t, but duty calls. If your mother were here…well, never mind. If I leave you alone, can I trust that you won’t run off?”
Another nod. Maybe Bert was imagining things, but he thought it looked contrite.
“I’m going to trust you, Sharna. But just so we’re clear, if you decide to betray my trust and run off, I’ll track you down and bring you back here. I don’t want to be so high-handed, but you’ve left me no choice. When I come home tonight and you’re not under the influence of whatever you’re on now, we’ll talk about where we go from here. Does that sound fair?”
Sharna looked him full in the face. She attempted to convey regret and love, but the narcotic disfigured it on the way out. “Oh, Daddy, of course it does. I’m sorry.”
“Well…okay then.” He got up and kissed her forehead. It was like a dusty light bulb under his lips. “There’s plenty of bread and some leftover turkey in the fridge. Why don’t you fix yourself something good to eat?”
“I will,” she said, beaming.
Bert left the house, his cop’s organic lie detector telling him one thing, his father’s sentimental heart telling him another. He got into the cruiser and took his radio mike from its pronged rack.
“Sheriff to base, do you copy? You there, Martha?”
“Receiving you, Sheriff,” said Martha’s crackly voice. “Go ahead.”
“I won’t be coming into the station this morning—I have a few inquiries to make. I might be outside radio contact for a while, too. If anything really urgent comes up, pass it on to Deputy Benson. But don’t bother him unless it’s an emergency.”
“Ten-four, Sheriff,” Martha said. “Sorry, to get all official, but what is the nature of your inquiries?”
“Just a scuffle down at the Eagle Eye,” Bert said.
“Investigating a ten-thirty-two. Okay, see you soon, Sheriff. Over and out.”
Bert put the mike back in its rack and held onto the steering wheel as if for support. No, there had been no altercation at the Eagle Eye Tavern. But he predicted there would shortly be an incident at Bald Eagle Hill, one that would require a multiple-page report…or perhaps no report at all.
Hunger gnawed at Bert’s belly as he nosed his cruiser up the winding dirt track towards the commune. While he had not eaten in more than twelve hours, he felt somehow ashamed at his hunger, as though his body had its priorities out of order.
It was a lovely day, he noted ruefully, just the sort of day a man should share breakfast with his daughter and her friends. The sky had been swept clean of clouds, leaving it a vibrant blue. The sun shone through the trees and dappled the track in shades of light and dark. Gradually the track started to widen and it opened onto a cleared area where three cars were parked with their noses to the fence. Apparently the long-haired freaks had no idea one of ‘their own’—now that deserved a bitter laugh—had been wandering Main Street in a drugged stupor. But they would know soon enough. Oh, yes—Bert thought he might drill it into their befuddled minds.
He parked the cruiser lengthways across the open gate for no purpose other than intimidation. He got out and slammed the door, then hitched up his belt and started across the yard. Someone had left an easel out in the weather—and, he noticed as he walked past, a canvas as well. He shook his head and tromped up the porch stairs, hoping his footsteps would reverberate through the house. But no one came out, and he could hear neither voices nor activity. He made a fist and pounded on the front door.
“It’s Sheriff Grayson!” he bellowed. “Here for my goddamned breakfast. Open up.”
He listened for responding voices or footfalls, but still heard nothing.
“You might as well come out now and save yourself the trouble. I don’t know what you did to my daughter, but you’re going to pay for it, one way or another. And don’t think I’m going to bother with a search warrant. If you don’t open this door right now I’m gonna bash it in. Make no mistake.”
These foghorned threats provoked no response—not even a low mutter of voices. Bert walked along the porch to the kitchen window and cupped his hands around his eyes to see in. Nobody was in the kitchen itself, nor in the slice of lounge room visible to him. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully and then headed around to the backyard. Who knew with hippies—they were probably in the forest meditating or chanting or some damned thing. Forming anti-war slogans and congratulating each other’s enlightenment while Sharna bumbled along Main Street like tomorrow’s roadkill.
He found no one at the back of the house either, only a shed. He was about to traipse off into the forest to hunt for footprints or listen for voices, when a twinkle in the grass caught his eye. He thought it would be nothing more than foil from a cigarette packet, but as he moved closer he could see it had considerably more mass than that. Hands on hips, he stared down at it—an object like the back of a silver tablespoon polished to a mirrored finish. He dropped into a crouch, now able to see a tiny fish-eye-lens reflection of himself. It appeared inert, harmless. He reached out his hand.
“I wouldn’t touch that if I were you, Sheriff.”
Bert jumped up (ignoring the firing caps of pain in each knee) and spun around, his hand going instinctively to his holster. He half expected to see Brolin leering over him, and an ax waiting sharp and keen at the top of its arc. But Brolin stood several feet back, his hands limp at his sides and his eyes hollow.
“Just the man I’ve been looking for,” Bert said. “What the hell did you do to my daughter you faggoty son of a bitch?”
“You saw Sharna?”
“Oh, yes, I saw Sharna. I saw her walking along Main Street trying to get herself run over because she was high on whatever goddamned drugs you gave her.”
“Did you see any of the others?”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass about any of the others,” Bert said, his hands balling into fists. “I care about my daughter and what you did to her. I don’t much want to talk about this, but since it’s your goddamned fault, you should hear about it. Do you know what she did? She propositioned me, Brolin. My own daughter.” Bert had to catch his breath before he continued. His windpipe seemed clogged up. “She clearly wasn’t in her right mind. High as a kite. She probably thought I was you or one of your band of assholes. Whatever the case, no father should have to hear those words. You corrupted my little girl, Brolin. Now give me one good reason why I shouldn’t knock your teeth into the back of your throat.”
“I can give you three,” Brolin said, and Bert was inclined to serve him a knuckle sandwich just for that—but somehow he hammerlocked his temper. “First of all, I love your daughter and I would never do anything to hurt her. Second, I can tell you with complete certainty that she wasn’t on drugs. And third, if you try to pick up that silver egg thing, you’ll end up just like she is.”
Bert folded his arms and squinted at Brolin. “Well if you’re so cocksure of yourself, maybe I should just take a look around the place. You have any objections to that?”
“None at all. Just don’t touch that thing.”
“Why? What is it?”
“I wish I knew, Sheriff. All I do know is one of them fell from the sky a few nights ago and from there things went downhill like a bitch.”
“Fell from the sky?”
Brolin shrugged and nodded.
“High as a goddamned kite, I knew it,” Bert said. “Where are the others?”
“I don’t know that either, Sheriff. They were going to do something with that silver egg or whatever it is, so I hightailed it out of here. I must have run about two miles before I stopped and I spent most of the morning hiding in the hills.”
Drug hallucination, was Bert’s first thought, but he had to admit Brolin did not look as Sharna had. His eyes were clear, sharp even…whetted on fear. Probably fear that he was going to get a .35 caliber police-issue bullet in his ass.
“Don’t think I don’t know this st
ory is a whole lotta bull,” Bert said. “I don’t know what you and your hippie friends have been doing up here, but I’m going to find out. And when I do, I’m going to pack all your sorry asses off to jail. Don’t doubt that, Brolin.”
“Look around, you fucking sack of hot air!” Brolin exploded. “You’re standing here tossing threats at me when something bad is going down. Something real bad. That egg did something to Guy—”
A red haze, like smoke seen through a lens filter, passed across Bert’s vision. He only half-absorbed what happened next, but when he came back to himself Brolin was flat on his butt and looking at him with seething reproach.
“That’s police brutality you fucking fascist!”
“And there’s plenty more where that came from if you don’t start making sense you fairy. You might think this is all a big game, but where the life of my daughter and the lives of the people in Bald Eagle are concerned, I don’t play around. Now, you’re going to tell me exactly what my daughter was on when I found her this morning, you’re going to tell me where the rest of it is hidden, and you’re going to tell me where your hippie-freak friends are.”
“Work it all out for yourself, you stupid pig,” Brolin said, getting to his feet. “You know what? Do me a favor, man. Go ahead and pick up that egg. Juggle it around if you fucking feel like it. But take it from me, before the day is out you won’t give a damn about your daughter—or anything else.”
Brolin started to walk off, apparently heading for the sanctity of the house.
“I’m warning you, Brolin.”
“You’re warning me of what?” he said without turning around. “That you’re going to shoot me in the back? How is that going to help Sharna?”
Bert went after him. “Goddammit, tell me what you did to her!”
“I did nothing.”
“You did, you gave her something! She was high, you think I don’t know what someone looks like when they’re high?”
Brolin stopped with one foot on the porch stairs. Finally he rounded on Bert, but the action had no energy—it was a weary gesture. “I don’t think you do know what someone looks like when they’re high. I don’t think you have the first clue what you’re talking about. Have you ever seen a marijuana plant, Sheriff?”
“I’ve seen photos.”
“Photos, right. What about magic mushrooms?”
Bert wanted to swot the little upstart again, but decided he had pressed his luck already. “Never.”
“Well, if you go about two-hundred feet into the woods there and start digging, you’ll find a few bags of both. We grew it in the garden bed you walked right past when you decided to come and harass and assault me on my own property. Sharna knew you would never accept her living here just on her word—”
“Wonder why,” Bert interjected.
“—so she cooked up this whole breakfast scheme to get Daddy onside. We buried what drugs we had out in the woods. I’ll give you a shovel and point you in the right direction if you want to find them so goddamned bad. But I’m telling you this: Sharna wasn’t high when you saw her. She was…something else.”
“Let me guess, Brolin, this is where the metal doohickey comes into it again, right?”
Brolin just stared back, implacable. Damn, the boy could put up a hard face when he had to.
“I ought to arrest you right now.”
“On what charges? Trying to penetrate your thick skull?”
“Possession of an illegal substance, verbally assaulting a police officer—”
“Christ, you just don’t get it, do you?” Brolin said. “This town that you love so much? It’s not me you have to protect it from. It’s…it’s Sharna and all the rest of them. Whatever that first egg did to Guy, it somehow spread to all the others. And I think it could spread further. That egg out in the grass there…one of the girls laid it.”
Bert took in Brolin’s earnest expression, then descended into peals of laughter. “Oh my lord, that’s the best bit yet. The girl laid an egg. A silver egg, no less. Oh, that’s rich.”
When he got his laughter fits under control, Bert looked up, expecting to see one worried or perhaps pissed off hippie. But Brolin still wore that mask, the one that looked like Comedy and Tragedy’s long-lost cousin, Consternation.
“So let me get this straight. You said the first egg fell from the sky, right? Where is it now, then?”
“Guy said he tossed it down an old mine shaft. But he—”
“Of course he did,” Bert said.
“Look, I’ve told you everything I know. If you’re going to search the place, get started. Otherwise, leave me alone so I can figure out what to do.”
“Well, since you’re asking, I think I might take a look around.”
Brolin led him inside and sat down on one of the lounges. “Let me know when you’re done,” he said.
Bert began his inspection in the kitchen, opening cupboards and drawers and making a lot of noise, but he meant his activity as a kind of indirect interrogation, to judge Brolin’s reaction. The hippie said and did nothing, not even when Bert joined him in the lounge room and unzipped one of the beanbags.
“I guess you cleaned the place out pretty good,” Bert said.
“Are you going now?” Brolin said.
“Yeah, I suppose I’ll be on my way now. But you can rest assured I plan on coming back sometime soon, Brolin. And next time I’ll be bringing in the dog squad from Denver.”
“Like I said, I can save you the trouble.”
“What, spend half the day digging around in the forest while you sit on your keester laughing at me? No, thank you. I’ll conduct my own investigations.”
“For all the good it will do us,” Brolin muttered.
“You say something, boy?”
“The same thing I’ve said about ten times now. But you don’t want to listen, do you? I thought maybe you were different to all the asshole cops in Frisco, but you’re even worse, you’re like—”
“I’ve had you,” Bert snarled. “On your feet.”
“What?”
Bert was pleased to see the first real flint-strike of fear in Brolin’s eyes. “I’m placing you under arrest.”
“What are you charging me with?”
“We’ll worry about the specifics later. Now get up.”
“Go to hell.”
“Boy, you turned my daughter against me and then you turned her into a drug-taking space cadet. To say I’m a bit pissed off with you is like saying the Arabs are a bit pissed off with the Jews. Now, with that in mind, you can either stand up on your own or else I’m going to make you stand up. The choice is yours.”
“This is bullshit,” Brolin said, choosing the safer option. “It’s against my constitutional rights.”
“You have the right to remain silent,” Bert said, jerking one of the hippie’s arms so he faced the other way. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.” He snapped the cuffs around Brolin’s wrists and marched him towards the front door. As they walked to the cruiser, Bert explained the rest of Brolin’s rights to him. He glanced at the star on his lapel and decided he didn’t care if he lost it for this.
Bert shut Brolin in the back and guided the car down the access road. Brolin commenced more of his deluded, drug-fiend ravings. Bert tried to shut it out, but the needle on his cop’s internal barometer—the one that distinguished lies and truth—was not pointing where he expected.
You’re letting your anger get in the way, came an unbidden thought. You’re as angry as a bear full of buckshot and it’s clouding your judgment.
Well…maybe he was. But what the hell, he had a right to be angry. He had played nice and ended up with a handful of sand thrown in his face. So now he would take control of the situation, and if that involved throwing a few handfuls back, so be it.
As they made the short trip along Main Street to the station Bert kept an eye out for Brolin’s friends, but saw nothing. No doubt they were already somewhere in the
town center making mischief—the Eagle Eye, if Red was fool enough to serve them. When Bert was done with Derek Brolin, he thought he might make a patrol through Bald Eagle and do a bit of hippie spotting.
Arriving at the station, he lined up his car beside Cody’s cruiser and Martha’s old Ford. “You going to make this nice and easy, Brolin?”
“I’m in handcuffs. What fucking choice do I have?”
“Our dispatcher is a lady. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t use that language once we get inside the station.”
“Yeah? Well, like Mick Jagger says, you can’t always get what you want.”
Bert chuckled a little at that and got out. His stomach had more words to say about its neglect—and with such a good morning’s work complete, he thought he might indulge it at a diner as a sidelight while he went hippie spotting. “Mind your head, now,” he said, nursing Brolin out of the car. Bert put one hand on Brolin’s shoulder, ready to clamp down if he showed signs of skedaddling, but the hippie trudged up the steps and through the front door (which Bert held open) without incident.
Cody and Martha, both seated at their desks, looked up as Bert walked in.
“Drunk?” Cody asked.
“Something like that. Be a good deputy and open the cell, would you?”
“Sure thing, boss,” Cody said, no doubt happy to abandon the report poking out the top of his typewriter.
“I get a phone call!” Brolin shouted, suddenly coming to life.
Bert sighed and scratched his neck. “I guess you do at that.”
“Sheriff?” Martha said, sounding anxious. “Is this—”
“Later, Martha. Okay, Brolin. You can use the phone in my office. One call, five minutes maximum.”
Brolin looked set to argue…then licked his lips and nodded.
A number of things sat on the table in room four of the Eagle’s Nest Motor Inn. One was Hank Woods’ typewriter, which held a sheet of paper with one paragraph of text on it. Rather than being an introduction to Hank’s Rolling Stone article, this text consisted of you slut written again and again without spaces or punctuation. Sharing the table with the typewriter was a bottle of bourbon, which at nine o’clock that morning had been full and now stood a finger or two short of empty. Beside the bottle was a coffee mug. For the past two days the coffee mug had held coffee, but were someone to smell it now, they might flinch back at the strong scent of alcohol. Completing this desktop quartet was Hank Woods’ head, which lay on its side and vibrated every five seconds or so with plangent snoring.