by Don Winslow
“You’re a dead man,” a voice hissed. The point of a combat knife pressed against Neal’s ribs.
Well, Neal thought, at least I’ve found Cal Strekker.
To Neal’s disappointment, Strekker didn’t take him to the compound. Instead he dragged him to a clearing farther along the ridge and slammed him down at the base of a small cedar.
He chose the spot pretty well, Neal thought. You can’t see or be seen from here.
Cal talked quietly into a small field radio. Neal made out the word intruder.
“Mr. Hansen’s on his way up,” Strekker said. “But maybe I should just kill you and tell him you tried to escape.”
His voice had a dangerous edge to it. His eyes were shining with an excitement that was almost sexual. Psychotic. Neal knew all about psychotic—he had ridden the Broadway local train for years. So he also knew there was only one way to treat this kind of violent crazy, the type that gets his jollies off other people’s fear.
Strekker unholstered his pistol and waved it in front of Neal. “Why don’t I just blow your face off right now?”
“Why don’t you just eat me?”
He watched Cal’s face turn red. With the blush and the orange beard he looked like a mutant tomato. He was furious, but Neal saw something else come onto that face: uncertainty.
“You think you’re a tough guy?” Strekker asked.
“No, but I’ll do until the real thing comes along.”
“It has come along, shithead.”
Neal laughed. “You?”
There is a definite ebb and flow to this kind of interaction, Neal thought. Cal’s tide is going out.
“What are you doing up here?” Cal asked.
“What’s it to you?” Neal asked. “Oh, that’s right. You’re the dickhead of security.”
And a pretty damn good one, I must admit. I sure as hell never heard you coming. Fine “operational shape” I’m in. But you’re good. You’re very good. I’m going to have to find a way to deal with you before I can get Cody McCall back to his mother.
Strekker clicked the hammer back and pointed the gun in Neal’s face. “This is a 9 mm. Do you know what that would do to your head?”
Neal felt the almost paralyzing pins and needles of terror. He wanted to curl up in a little ball and cry.
But that would probably get me killed, he thought. So he answered, “Has anyone ever talked to you about handguns as phallic symbols? Listen, Cal, genital size isn’t everything. There’s also charm, good grooming, a sense of humor …”
Cal holstered the pistol.
“Get on your feet,” he said. “I’m going to beat the hell out of you.”
Neal had no doubt that if he got to his feet Cal would beat the hell out of him, so he stayed on his butt and said, “You’re going to do shit. Hansen’s on his way here? I’ll deal with the boss, not the hired help.”
He leaned back against the tree and closed his eyes. He didn’t open them again until he heard footsteps.
Hansen wasn’t alone. He had brought one of the other hands with him. A thick, broad-shouldered short man with black hair and a beard.
“Get up,” Cal barked at Neal.
Neal made himself get to his feet very slowly. He dusted off his jeans and looked at Hansen.
Hansen said, “What are you—”
“Just hold on a second,” Neal cut him off. “I have a question for you. I’m out taking a simple walk on public land and your goon here jumps me, holds a knife to my ribs, points his gun at my nose, and holds me prisoner. I make that three counts of assault, plus kidnapping and unlawful detention, and I’m holding you responsible. So you make sure you keep that ranch of yours in good order, because I want it nice and clean when I take possession.”
Something Joe Graham taught him: when you’re hopelessly on the defensive, attack. When they catch you red-handed, slap them with it. Neal dusted himself off some more and started to walk away. Cal’s hand went to his gun.
“Government land starts another two hundred feet up,” Hansen said. “You’re on Hansen Cattle Company land. I have a right to protect my property against rustlers and horse thieves.”
Neal spun around. “Where am I going to put a cow? In my pocket?”
“You could be scouting the place out,” Hansen replied.
True enough, Neal thought.
“What are you doing with those fieid glasses?” Strekker demanded.
Scouting the place out.
Neal made a show of calming down. He stared at the ground as if trying to recover his temper, and then said in a tone of determined reasonableness, “I wanted to see a mountain lion.”
Hansen and the black-haired man laughed.
“A mountain lion?” Hansen asked.
“Yeah, Steve Mills said there were mountain lions up here. I’m staying in his cabin, thought I’d take a walk and try to see one. I’m from New York. I’ve never seen anything like a mountain lion.”
Neal watched as Bob Hansen tried to decide how to react. Cal Strekker’s lupine grin left him in no doubt as to what would happen if Hansen gave the thumbs down.
“Well, you’re a friend of Steve Mills,” Hansen said, “so we’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. But we’ll be keeping an eye on you.
Which is when Neal decided to push it. “Jesus,” he muttered just loud enough to be heard. “I might as well be back in the joint.”
“What?” Hansen asked.
Neal opened up the tap on his feigned temper a little. “I said I might as well be back in the joint! I came out here so I wouldn’t have people ‘keeping an eye’ on me!”
“Where were you in jail?”
“New York.”
“What for?” Hansen asked.
Do I push it some more? Open it up, step on the gas, let it rip? Or do I play it safe? “Shooting a nigger,” Neal answered, looking Bob Hansen straight in the eyes.
And the eyes told him that he had Hansen’s interest.
“Well, hell,” Hansen said. “I didn’t think you could shoot a gun in New York and not hit a nigger.”
His boys laughed.
“Mr. Hansen, I wish you’d been the judge,” Neal said. “He took it pretty seriously.
“Did you kill him?”
“The judge?”
“The nigger.”
“No. To tell you the truth, I’m not a very good shot.”
More laughter. The atmosphere was starting to change.
We’re getting to be buddies, Neal thought.
“What was he?” Hansen asked. “A pimp? A pusher?”
People will always tell you the answers they want to hear, Neal thought.
“Both.”
“I’ll bet the judge was a Jew,” the black-haired man said.
They’ll even tell your story for you if you just take the time to listen.
Neal nodded. “The judge and both lawyers. Mine told me to plead guilty. I got six to ten. Served three.”
Hansen shook his head angrily. “That’s the jew-dicial system we got. I’ll bet the nigger is back out selling women and dope.”
“I didn’t look him up,” Neal said. “Parole officers frown on that sort of thing.”
“Your parole officer know you left the state?” Strekker asked.
Neal picked up on the tone of doubt.
“What do you think?” he answered sarcastically.
“So you’re skipping,” Strekker said.
Let’s push it a little more, Neal thought. “I’m not going to live my life with Big Brother looking over my shoulder every minute, telling me what to do, what not to do, where I can work, who I can see. Seems like a white man can’t be free back East. I thought it would be different here. I guess I was wrong. I’ll stay off your land, Mr. Hansen, but you keep your eye on your own business,” Neal said. Then he looked at Strekker, “And if you ever lay a hand on me again, I’ll kill you where you stand or die trying.” And, by the way, don’t tread on me.
Strekker leered at him. H
ansen was sizing him up as if Neal was a bull he was thinking about buying.
“You’re a fighter,” Hansen said.
“I don’t want to be,” Neal answered. “But if I’m pushed …”
“We’re all being pushed, son,” Hansen said. “But some of us have decided to push back.”
Neal just shrugged.
“I can check out your story, you know,” Hansen continued.
I’ll bet you can, Neal thought. “It’s not a story, Mr. Hansen. I wish it was.”
“And if it turns out you’re lying you’d best be long gone from this valley.”
Mister, Ed Levine will have this cover story locked down so tight that I would believe it if I checked it out.
“And if it turns out to be true?” Neal asked.
“Then maybe I could use a man like you,” answered Hansen.
And maybe I could use a man like you, Neal thought. But he said, “What for?”
Hansen smiled. “Depends. Let me ask you, Neal, what did you see from up here with those glasses?”
Do I lie? Do I bluff? If I he and they don’t buy it, I’m dead. But if I tell the truth and they don’t like it, I’m dead.
So Neal gave them his best “ink blot” look, an enigmatic expression that allowed the other person to read into Neal’s face whatever it was he wanted to read—lips curled into the slightest of smiles, eyes just a shade widened.
“Nothing,” he said.
Hansen smiled back at him. “You’ll be hearing from me,” he said. Then he signaled to his boys to follow him and headed off down the slope.
Strekker bumped into Neal.
“You and me still have a date, shithead,” he hissed as he walked away.
That is a distinct possibility, Neal thought.
He waited for a few minutes to let his heart slow down and started the hike back to the cabin.
Steve Mills was waiting for him with a gun.
“I forgot to give you this,” he said just as Neal was about to drop into a fetal ball on the ground.
Steve looked at the binoculars. “Sightseeing?”
Neal ignored the question and gestured at the rifle. “What do I need that for?”
“You’re a long way from the nearest policeman, Neal,” Steve answered. “And a lot closer to the nearest cougar. Not to mention coyotes.”
“Or goofball survivalists.”
“Or goofball survivalists.”
“I don’t want to shoot a cougar or a coyote.”
“Oh, hell, the noise will scare them away,” Steve said.
“In that case …” Neal reached for the rifle.
“You know how to shoot one of these things?” asked Steve.
“Something to do with pulling a trigger, right?”
The rifle, Neal learned, was a Marlin 336. It had a lever action, a ten-round magazine, and shot 30/30 ammo. It weighed six pounds but seemed a lot heavier when Neal shot it and it bucked back against his shoulder. And it did make one hell of a noise.
“But don’t you need this?” Neal asked through the sound of cathedral bells tolling in his ears.
“No,” Steve answered. “I’ve got a regular arsenal back at the house. You collect these things over the years. You saw the Winchester. I have a Remington, a Savage combination, an old H&R twelve-gauge pump, even a few old handguns until the fed decide to collect them all. I guess I can spare you this one.”
I guess you can.
“You oughta practice with this a little bit,” Steve advised. “You never know.”
“True enough,” Neal answered.
He watched as Steve loped back across the sagebrush toward his place.
You never know, Neal thought.
He went back into the cabin, took a half hour or so to get a fire started in the stove, then another forty-five minutes to figure out the intricacies of an old-fashioned coffee percolator. By the time he made a pot it was dusk, and he took his hard-won cup out onto the small porch and watched the hard desert edges turn a soft rose. The Shoshone Mountains across the valley turned into indistinct silhouettes, first charcoal gray and then black. The sun blazed red for a finale and then dropped behind the mountains.
A moment later the coyotes started to howl.
Ed Levine was bored.
He was gazing out his office window at Times Square. He was leaning back in his chair, his feet propped on his desk, a cigarette smoldering in a saucer on the desk.
The flashing lights below were doing nothing for him. Neither were the sounds of the taxi horns and buses, nor the vaguely human sounds that reached up from the streets. He leaned over, took a drag of the cigarette, and leaned back again as the man on the other end of the phone went on and on and on.
The office door opened and Joe Graham walked in.
“Can you hold on a minute?” Ed asked the man on the phone.
He pushed the hold button, looked at Graham, and raised his eyebrows.
“It’s all set up,” Graham answered the unasked question.
“Good,” Ed replied. He took a closer look at Graham. “You’re worried.”
“The kid hasn’t been undercover like this for a long time. It’s risky.”
Ed nodded. “It always is.”
Graham rubbed his artificial hand into the sweaty flesh of his real palm.
“I want to get closer,” he said.
“It’s too soon.”
“I don’t want it to be too late.”
Ed frowned and gestured at the phone.
Graham set himself down in the chair across from the desk.
Ed frowned more and said, “If we get too close now we might burn him. Just be ready to go.”
“I’m ready now.”
Ed gestured impatiently toward the phone again. Graham showed no sign of moving from the chair.
“Okay,” Ed said. “Start working out a cover for yourself. Now stop worrying and go have a couple of beers.”
Graham got up. “I’ll have the beers,” he said from the doorway, “but I won’t stop worrying.” He closed the door behind him.
It is definitely time for a change, Ed thought.
He pushed the hold button again and started speaking before the other guy could. “Let’s get down to business,” Levine said. “Just what is it you need, Reverend Carter?”
Back out on The High Lonely, Jory Hansen sat at the bottom of the ravine. He was watching the moon.
When it was high and full, Jory hopped onto his horse, gave the mare a gentle kick in the ribs, and started across the rabbit brush, dull silver in the moonlight.
He reached the spur of the mountain, stopped for a moment to stroke the horse’s neck, and then let the animal pick its way carefully up the slope.
From the brush beside the narrow trail, small eyes glowing red in the darkness watched him. An owl left its perch and flew slowly above and behind him, hoping that the horse would flush a rabbit or a squirrel out of the brush. On a shelf of rock a hundred or so yards above, a cougar flicked its ears as it caught the hated scent of the horse and retreated into a deep stand of cedar.
A half an hour later the cougar growled softly as the horse passed by, a rabbit squealed in terror as the owl sank its talons into its neck and lifted it into the dark sky, and far out on The High Lonely a coyote sniffed the night air for the distinctive scent of death.
Part Two
Outlaws
5
Neal picked up the heavy cast-iron skillet and poured the bacon grease into an old coffee can. He set the skillet back on top of the wood stove. As the thin layer of grease spattered and hissed, Neal broke two eggs on the edge of the skillet and opened them into the pan. He swirled the skillet gently until the eggs were set and put it back down on the cast-iron heater.
On the back burner, the bubbling of the old metal percolator slowed to a single blurp. Neal picked the coffee pot up with a hot pad and poured himself a mug. Prismatic residue floated on top, giving off that oily tang particular to old-fashioned perked coffee. N
eal took a careful sip, scalding his lips only slightly as he stepped out onto the cabin porch.
The sun was rising behind him, starting to warm the cabin’s tin roof. Neal savored the sounds that he had first heard only as silence. Listening carefully, he now heard the western breeze ruffle the trees, the distinct crackle of the creek as it rushed over rock and sand. He heard that same old ornery crow scolding him from the same pine branch, the hammering noise of a downy woodpecker as it hunted for ants in a dead cedar, the rattling chirp of a ground squirrel.
And there were the smells. The dominant odor of pine needles, distinct from the muskier smell of pine pitch, the warm, acrid smell of the acidic dirt beneath the rabbit brush, the sagebrush itself, dry and sweet smelling in the crisp early morning. And now there was the aroma of the eggs frying in the bacon grease and the wonderful bread smell as it browned on the grill above the stove.
Neal walked back into the cabin and turned the eggs over, then pressed the spatula down until the yolks broke. He took the toast off the grill, buttered it, and placed it on the old, white, chipped plate with the little blue flowers around the edge. He watched the eggs until they turned solid, then flipped them onto the plate, poured himself more coffee, and sat down at the table, three wide pine boards hammered onto a frame of split logs. He pulled up his chair—another primitive pine job hacked out with a hatchet—and opened his Carson City Gazette to the sports page.
The newspaper was exactly one week behind. Neal hitched a ride to town with Steve once a week to buy his supplies and stocked up on his newspapers seven at a time. He had disciplined himself to read only one paper a day, and so his news was a week old, but it wasn’t long before that didn’t matter, and it wasn’t long after that that he took to only glancing at the hard news anyway, turning his attention to sports, book reviews, editorials, and the comics. He got very involved with the comic strips, actually feeling suspense at the fate of Gil Thorp’s baseball team and Steve Roper.
On this morning, as on every other morning, building a life was mostly a matter of maintenance. Joe Graham had taught him that a long time ago—that managing your life was about doing the small tasks well and doing them when they needed to be done. “People think that they’re ‘free,’” Joe Graham had lectured one time as he was browbeating Neal into cleaning his pigsty of an apartment, “when they don’t have any order in their lives. They’re not free. They’re prisoners of their own sloppiness. They spend a hell of a lot more time and energy cleaning up their messes than they do having fun, whatever they tell you. Now, if you just do the little boring things every day, in some kind of order, you leave yourself with more time to sit around, drink beer, and watch ball games on TV, which is, after all, what you want to be doing in the first place. Besides which, sloppy detectives tend to end up dead.”