by Bart Paul
“I know,” he said. “Word gets around.” He started to get out of the car.
“Don’t.”
He stopped. “Look, I don’t want any trouble.”
“Then what’re you doing here?”
“I wanted to pay my respects.”
Boy, there was nothing to say to that.
“To Jenny. She was a nice kid. What Snake did was wrong.”
“Killing her? Oh, yeah. But you took his money anyway.”
“I ain’t perfect, okay. Internal Affairs is breaking my balls. I’ll be lucky to keep my badge.” He squirmed in the seat. “They might wanna talk to you about … you know, stuff.”
“Here’s what I know. You were following me. That’s all. I don’t have a clue why. A pimp said you were on the take for him, but he’s past talking. You just leave it at that. Enough people died here already. I could give a shit if you get to keep your job.”
Carl looked through his windshield, past the crappy spruce trees and down the hill over the sagebrush to the Reno Highway heading south to Hornberg’s a few miles below town. If you knew what you were looking for, you could see scorched pasture and blackened trees and fences around the foundation of the burned house in the hazy distance. He sort of nodded toward the grave.
“Jenny deserved better,” he said. “I knew her ten years.”
“What? Sonny give you a discount with her? Great, a sentimental predator.”
He started to close the door, but I put my boot on the rocker panel so he couldn’t.
“Now, here’s what I think. I think Audie’s mother went to the only cop she knew to say Sonny was molesting her daughter. Their daughter. And that cop, being a vice cop as well as a weak-suck chicken-shit scum, told Sonny instead of his superiors. And that’s when Sonny blew that poor girl’s brains out. That’s what started this whole hoo-rah that ended up at Hornberg’s last week.”
He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm.
“Tell the kid—”
“I’ll tell her nothing.” I took my boot off his car. “I better never see you again.”
He closed the door and started the engine. I walked back to the rest of my folks.
“Who was that?” Dan said.
“Nobody.”
At the Sno-Cone we piled around two picnic tables and waited for our order. Harvey, May, and I stood by the take-out window.
“I’m ready for some ice cream.” Harvey said. He was more a bourbon and beer guy, but he had a devilish sweet tooth.
“What’s to become of that child?” May said. She spoke soft so Audie couldn’t hear. “You think your mom and Burt can get custody?”
“Maybe. Or she might stay with us. That’s what Sarah wants.”
May grabbed me and gave me a big smack on the cheek. “Good,” she said.
“Sarah and I need to figure it out. She said anything permanent with non-relatives is hard. Then there’s the … recent violence. I did kill the kid’s father.”
“I have the feeling that her being with you and Sarah is just meant to be.”
“Now you sound like Mom.”
I knew nothing was ever meant to be. You either make it happen or you don’t.
Audie dozed off on the drive back up to the pack station, whimpering and mumbling in her sleep. When our two trucks pulled into the yard, Harvey strapped on his tool belt to put in a few hours on the cabin before supper and work off his hot fudge sundae.
Sarah put Lorena down for a nap. I went outside and slid Dad’s .270 into the outhouse rafters, then saddled up a brown horse that didn’t belong to me. Nobody had claimed Twister Creed’s body or even knew if he had any family, much less if this horse actually belonged to him. The gelding stood quiet while I rigged him up, but I was quiet, too. He didn’t seem like a horse a guy should take for granted. I’d have to put ads in the Reno Gazette Journal, the Copper County News, and the Progressive Rancher and leave notices at feed stores and such to see if anybody claimed him, but if I was going to feed him, I was going to ride him.
He was watchful as I stepped up, and he seemed light and responsive and ready to move. I saw Audie keeping an eye on me from the porch, more serious and sad than ever. I busted the horse out along the fence to see what he’d do, pushing him harder than I ought, to see if he’d bog his head. He did. He was fast and catty and a bit touchy, a cowboy’s horse, but honest, and he settled pretty quick. Sarah had gone inside to change, so I hollered for Audie to open the corral gate for me. Sarah heard the gate creak and walked back outside, barefoot and in jeans, buttoning a cowboy shirt. I rode up to the porch. Sarah gave me that look she had.
“I’m going to ride this guy up the trail for half an hour.”
“Are you coming back?” Audie said.
“’Course I’m coming back. I live here, remember?”
“Where do I live?”
I circled the brown horse a few more times. Sarah watched to see what I’d say. I answered Audie, but my eye was on my wife. We’d never really come close to settling this.
“Here. You live here. With Sarah and me.”
Sarah nodded and gave me a heartbreaking smile. I nodded back.
I loped the horse out the gate, stopped him, and circled him again. “Tell you what. Go get into your jeans.”
“How come?” Audie said.
“’Cause you’re going with me.”
I didn’t have to ask her twice. In the couple weeks we’d known her, getting the kid on a horse was never something I had time to think about. I had a solid old mare saddled when Audie came back. I got her mounted and the stirrups shortened.
“You ever been on a horse before?”
“Hell no,” she said. “But I bet I’ll be damn good at it.”
Sarah shaded her eyes with her hand and watched us ride off up the canyon.