Lone Creek

by Neil Mcmahon

  “Sorry,” I said. “I’m wrapped tight as hell and wiped out, both. And I’ve got something that’s hard to admit. I saw you at my place Sunday night.”

  Gary’s eyebrows rose.

  “I was on my motorcycle,” I said. “I rode it to sneak onto the ranch and talk to Doug, the foreman. Then I went to Josie’s. On my way home, a tow truck passed me. I followed it to my place. You were waiting there.” I paused and exhaled. “I freaked out. All I could think was that Balcomb had found some new way to hammer me, and it was really serious this time.”

  There was a longish silence. Reuben cleared his throat. Gary’s finger started tapping again.

  “So you took off on a retreat,” he said. “A church here in town?”

  “I dumped the bike and hiked on up into the Belts. That’s what I used to do when I was a kid and I got bummed. I had this whole deal laid out—tree stumps that were stations of the cross, a nook in the rocks that was a confessional. Like that.”

  “Huh. Well, I wouldn’t want to go violating a sacrament, but can you give me a hint what you confessed to?”

  “Stealing that lumber—although I still have a mental reservation that I salvaged it, and Balcomb was just being a prick,” I said. “Acting like a pissed-off kid and burning it, there’s no excuse for that. Running from you instead of facing up. Some other things like that.”

  He shook his head ruefully. “I wish my conscience was that light. Hell, if I was on the other side of the screen, I’d let you off with an Our Father and a couple Hail Marys.”

  “There’s more, but it’s hard to explain,” I said. “My life’s been crashing, getting out of control. I was trying to figure out how it happened and what to do about it.” I shrugged. “I didn’t, but I came away feeling a little better.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t call that exactly an ironclad alibi,” Gary said. “You were up there the whole two days, huh?”

  “I came back next afternoon.”

  “How’d you manage? You know, eating and sleeping.”

  “I keep my camping gear in that garage back of my cabin. I sneaked in and threw some stuff in a pack while you guys were busy with my truck.”

  He grimaced. “My boys ain’t going to be happy to hear that.”

  “If it helps any, tell them it was because they scared the shit out of me.”

  “I don’t suppose anybody else saw you.”

  “I didn’t want anybody to see me. That was kind of the point. I know that country pretty good, and there’s hardly anybody around there anyway.”

  “That might not have been real smart,” he said.

  “I wasn’t trying to be smart. Not like that, anyway.”

  Reuben had stayed silent, and seemed not to be paying attention. But he broke in suddenly.

  “Now, Gary, how important is this?” he said. “Nothing happened during that time. Kirk was gone already and Balcomb not yet.”

  “That’s true, Reuben. But they still are missing, and Hugh’s right in the middle of the squall.”

  I’d seen many confrontations between men, sometimes open and even violent, more often couched in the underhanded courtesy of the professional world. This was a silent showdown between two aging bulls who’d known each other all their lives, weighing the many factors that hovered between them—power, indebtedness, loyalty, and that unwritten code they’d grown up with.

  Gary couldn’t control the investigation completely, but he could do a lot to steer it. This was potentially big, and his reputation was on the line. His safest course would be to keep the pressure on me. But Reuben was ready to fight.

  Maybe Gary guessed that the reason had something to do with Celia.

  He looked at his watch again and stood up.

  “OK, Hugh,” he said. “I ain’t saying this is over, but I don’t see enough reason to hold you now.”

  I sagged and mumbled thanks. Reuben gave me a curt, congratulatory backslap.

  “I’ll talk to Judge Harris and get him to drop everything,” Gary said. “I found out why he set your bail so high, by the way. Balcomb told him you’d been screwing one of the ranch wives, and that was the real reason he wanted to give you a hard time.”

  I shook my head in disbelief at Balcomb’s bottomless bag of tricks. He must have known that the judge was an old-school gentleman who enjoyed his liquor and gambling, but was notoriously straitlaced about sex.

  “That’s the first goddamn thing I’ve been accused of I wish was true,” I said. Reuben grunted appreciatively and Gary’s lips curved in a slight smile.

  But then the irony hit me, verging on the eerie, that I had been dallying with one of the ranch wives. Balcomb’s.

  “Stop at the desk and sign for the stuff we took from your place,” Gary said. “Everything checked out clean. I’ll get your truck brought around.”

  I caught myself just before I closed my eyes in relief.

  Reuben and I followed Gary out to the main office, where he issued brief instructions and got my paperwork started.

  “I’m going to mosey on home and get some sleep,” Reuben said quietly. “Keep in mind what the man said—it’s a long ways from over.”

  I knew he wasn’t just talking about the investigation, but about what we’d revealed to each other last night. From then until now, we’d been carried by adrenaline, common interest, and his shrewd toughness. But that was going to give way to the ugly truths we’d both learned, and rationality and emotion would go to war. Whatever truce we might end up with would be uneasy at best.

  We had evened out our long-standing grievance, but it was a devil’s bargain.

  I thanked him for his support, assuring him I’d stay in touch. We shook hands, and he left.

  I signed the release papers for my possessions—besides the truck, a plastic bag with a computer-labeled tag containing the dirty clothes and spare boots I’d planted, which the sheriffs had also taken and checked out.

  I stepped through the courthouse doors into the outside world, carrying the bag over my shoulder like a homeless man—but free once again to legally walk the streets. The deputy with the withered arm who’d first brought me in was standing in the background, watching. He didn’t look happy to see me go.

  SIXTY-TWO

  I spent a couple of minutes waiting out front for my pickup truck to come back from wherever they had it impounded. The morning was clear and crisp, the weather getting into that glorious Indian summer that was the best part of the year around here.

  My liberty might not last long, but Lord, did it feel fine.

  Like Reuben had said, a minefield of worries still lay ahead. With someone of Balcomb’s stature, a host of authorities would step in, probably including the FBI. I could count on being grilled again, and it was all too possible that I’d slip up or that some damning piece of evidence would come to light. John Doe might come back for revenge, or Balcomb’s smuggling partners might decide to get even with whoever had disrupted their operation. If none of those exploded under me, there was still Kirk’s Jeep, which would almost certainly be found next summer. With any luck, the sheriffs would decide that he’d been in it when it crashed—had gotten thrown out of the open top and carried away by underwater currents. But the fact that it had just happened to end up in my neighborhood was going to raise Gary’s hackles.

  In my favor, there was good reason to think that Kirk and Balcomb had been involved with high-level criminals, which was true. No doubt Balcomb had plenty of other enemies to cloud things further. Only a few people knew what really had happened, and all of them had good reasons to stay silent. Madbird. Reuben. John Doe, if he was still alive. Laurie might or might not ever turn up again—with her money, she could stay vanished forever. But if she did get questioned, there was still no reason for her to do anything but feign ignorance. And she sure knew how to spin a story.

  As for Balcomb, we had disposed of him, on Reuben’s suggestion, at an old homesteader’s cabin about two miles back into the mountains. There was nothing left
of the structure except a rock-and-mortar foundation. But there also was a crumbling cistern dug into a hillside, which collected from a spring. I’d known the place was there, but not about the cistern—probably the only other living person besides Reuben who did know was Elmer. It was covered by brush and partly filled by erosion, but about two feet of murky scum-covered water remained on the bottom, fed by the still trickling spring. We’d weighted Balcomb down with rocks, kicked dirt in from the hillside to fill the cistern the rest of the way, and rearranged the brush for cover. It was almost as secure an entombment as Kirk’s.

  Then we’d gone back to the golf driving range to tidy up there.

  “I know there’s blood on these diamonds,” Reuben had said, picking up the box, “but I guess I’m too much of a hard-ass old prick to think letting them stay buried here would wash it off. I’ll liquidate them quietly and put the money where it’ll do some good, if you boys are amenable.” Madbird and I were. We covered up the safe, drove the cart back in over it, and went home.

  And right now, all I cared about was the sight of my pickup truck, turning the corner and coming my way.

  When it pulled up to the curb, I was taken aback to see that Gary himself was driving, with his elbow perched jauntily on the windowsill. He patted the dash, apparently admiring the truck again.

  “This is some rig,” he said. “Runs smooth and handles real tight.”

  “I had the steering gear replaced not long ago.”

  “I miss those old days. You had a ride like this, a girl, and a six-pack, that was as close to heaven as it got.”

  “I still can’t think of much better,” I said.

  He shifted position experimentally, like he was getting used to the seat. He didn’t seem in any hurry to climb out.

  “You know, I’m kind of sticking my neck out, doing this,” he said.

  “I do know that, Gary. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”

  “Well, if you’d answer just one question, it might clear up something that’s been bothering me a long time.”

  Everything in me stopped.

  “It don’t have anything to do with this, directly, anyway,” he said. “I guarantee I won’t hold it against you or breathe a word about it.”

  That didn’t reassure me much.

  “I’ll try,” I said.

  “Did Pete kill her?”

  I shoved my hands into my pockets and took a couple of steps, gazing up at the mountains.

  If we want something from Gary, we better give him something, too.

  I turned back to him. “Yeah.”

  That might have helped satisfy his curiosity, but it sure didn’t please him.

  “I didn’t lie to you back then, Gary,” I said quickly, trying to head off his wrath. “I didn’t know.”

  “So how is it you know now?”

  “You said just one question.”

  His eyes went hard as stone and his forefinger rose to point at my chest.

  “I’m the goddamn sheriff of Lewis and Clark County, son, and I’ll ask as many goddamn questions as I want.”

  I waited, braced for an ass-chewing that would take me out at the knees.

  But then he lowered his hand and sat back again, his expression turning wry.

  “All right, a deal’s a deal,” he said. “I can pretty well fill in the blanks from there, anyway.”

  We were both quiet for another half minute. He still didn’t get out of the truck.

  “When’s the last time you went to confession, really?” he said. “You know, in a church?”

  My unease swept back in. I didn’t think I was imagining an element of sarcasm about my story of a cathedral in the woods.

  “Not for years,” I said. “Mass, either.”

  “I go every Sunday. But the difference between that and what I see every day—” His mouth twisted in the same grimacing way it had earlier. “It’s kind of like this situation. On the one hand, I’m all for letting people solve their problems on their own, especially if they do it clean and decent, and double especially if it’s no bother to me. On the other hand, that ain’t necessarily how the law’s supposed to work.”

  “I’m not sure I follow you,” I said, although I did, all too well.

  “Reuben’s bullshitting. You and me both know it, and so does he. If Kirk and Balcomb were dealing with somebody that serious, Kirk’s dead. Maybe Balcomb was slick enough to get out. Maybe not.”

  He swung his head toward me and skewered me with those slaty eyes.

  “Maybe it was something else entirely,” he said.

  I kept my mouth shut once more.

  “There ain’t many bodies buried around here that I don’t know where,” Gary said. “It’s something I kind of pride myself on. What do you suppose the odds are I’ll run across another one someday?”

  “I wouldn’t want to bet against you on much of anything, Gary.”

  “You better give Bill LaTray a call. He’s got a way of dislocating a skip’s shoulder before they start chatting.”

  He finally opened the truck’s door, got out, and handed me the keys.

  “Be seeing you, Hugh,” he said.

  SIXTY-THREE

  Sitting behind the wheel of my good old pickup again was a pure joy. I started home. But I hadn’t gone more than a few goddamned blocks when I heard a pop outside the window, then felt the drag in the right rear that meant a blown tire.

  “Son of a bitch,” I said. I had a good spare and jack—I just couldn’t believe I was going to have to fuck around with something like that right now.

  I was on Ewing, a narrow street with cars parked almost solid, and of course there was somebody right on my ass. I turned down the next side street, found a place to ease over to the curb, and got out to take a look at the damage.

  The vehicle behind me also turned—a big four-door Chevy pickup truck of a generic white color, so new it didn’t yet have license plates, just a temporary tag. As it pulled up beside me, I got a glimpse of a logo that read Grenfell Chevrolet, Great Falls, Montana. The windows were smoked so I couldn’t see in, until the rear one closest to me rolled down. There were two men, one driving and the other in back. I assumed they were going to offer me a ride to a gas station, and I started to say thanks, but I had it covered.

  Then I realized that the man in back was resting a pistol barrel on the windowsill. It ended in a vented cylinder the size of a roll of quarters—a sound suppressor.

  “Get in, please,” he said. The words were clear but had a crisp accent. He pushed open the door and slid back across the seat, with the gun still pointed at my chest.

  Balcomb had been quick about hiring new killers, all right. He must have set this up before we’d gotten to him last night.

  There wasn’t another human being anywhere in view. My body felt completely drained of power, like a bag of hair. With the sick hopeless certainty that this was it, I got in.

  The interior’s pleasant new-vehicle smell was almost overcome by cologne that reminded me of a bad air freshener, with a heavy admixture of garlic. The man in the back with me had a wiry athletic build and a handsome, sharp-featured face. Together with his accent, his looks suggested northern Europe. The driver was older, heavier-set and darker-complexioned, with black hair and a thick mustache—maybe Latino or Mediterranean. By and large, they were almost as ordinary-looking as John Doe.

  Except that both were decked out in full cowboy regalia, from Stetsons and shirts with mother-of-pearl snaps down to pointy-toed boots, all as new as the truck. It would have been laughable, except that there was nothing funny about these two. John Doe had only been scary. They were at ease.

  “Wesley Balcomb’s gone,” I said, in the feeble hope of canceling their mission. “He disappeared last night. Maybe hiding out. Maybe dead.”

  The man in back with me nodded calmly.

  “Yes, we know,” he said.

  They must have been paid in advance.

  I couldn’t imagine how the hell
they’d found out about Balcomb so fast, or how they’d located me—a police scanner, maybe, or something far more sophisticated. I wasn’t about to ask. In a way, the worst thing about it was knowing that the last laugh was going to be Balcomb’s after all.

  But then—late, as usual—the obvious occurred to me. If he had known they were after me, he would have used that as a bargaining chip last night.

  That didn’t make me feel any better, just more confused.

  The man in the backseat watched me comfortably. His gaze never left me, and the gun barrel never wavered. They obviously had familiarized themselves with the area—the driver tooled along like he’d lived here all his life, taking us smoothly and unhesitatingly up Davis Gulch, a narrow dirt road that climbed into the forested mountains south of town. When I was a kid it had been deserted—we used to ride our dirt bikes and sight in rifles up there. Now there was a little development, but it was still pretty much no-man’s-land, with all kinds of places where a body could simply be tossed out of a truck and not noticed for a good long while.

  After a couple of miles we came to a clear-cut plateau that they must have found out had good cell phone reception. The man in the back with me took out his phone and spoke into it tersely. The language seemed familiar but I couldn’t identify it. It resembled German, but I was sure it wasn’t, nor Scandinavian—it didn’t have those inflections. Dutch was the closest I could guess. He listened, spoke again, then handed me the phone.

  “Hello, Mr. Davoren,” a male voice said. It had just a trace of the same accent, but overlaid by the kind of precise British pronunciation that foreigners learned at Oxford.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know who I’m talking to,” I said.

  “I’m afraid that’s precisely the problem. You do. The charming Laurie Balcomb informed you that I was in business with her husband.”

  For a few seconds, my confusion deepened. The only one of Balcomb’s associates that I could remember Laurie talking about was John Doe, and for certain, this wasn’t him.

  Then the answer came to the surface, along with the realization that the language the men were speaking must have been Flemish.