Three Weeks to Say Goodbye

by C. J. Box

  “If only these little places had jobs for international tourism specialists,” I said, reaching inside the Jeep so Angelina could grab my finger. “What a great place to live, to raise little kids.”

  “Where her neighbor could be the Unabomber,” Melissa said, and we both laughed. Angelina squealed with delight simply because her parents were laughing. We hadn’t done enough of that lately, I decided.

  Cody came out of the bar with a Coors Light in his hand and a cigarette.

  “Some old high-school buddies in there,” he said. “D’you remember the Browning brothers or Chad Kerr? They asked about you and Brian.”

  “They did?”

  “Yeah,” Cody said. “So much for coming up here incognito, eh? I forgot how everybody knows everybody’s business in Montana.”

  “What about Uncle Jeter?”

  “He’s waiting for us out at his place. He said he’d disarm the trip wires so we could drive right up to his house.”

  “What?”

  “I’m joking,” Cody said, tossing his cigarette aside into the mud.

  UNCLE JETER’S CABIN WAS tucked away in an alcove of pine and aspen trees and accessed via an ascending two-track road with potholes filled to the top with chocolate-milk-colored water. Cody said, “I think I still remember how to get there …”

  We passed under an ancient sagging lodgepole-pine archway that was dark gray with moisture and crawling with bright green and white lichen. On one support pole was a tiny wood-burned sign that said HOYT OUTFITTING SER VICES. On the other was a rusted metallic sign that said NO WHINERS. Inside the archway, Uncle Jeter’s cabin was shambling and low-slung, looking like a scene from 1880 except for the satellite dish mounted on a pole and aimed at a southern gap of cloudy sky to the south. I saw two four-wheel-drive vehicles—a Dodge Power Wagon from the 1960s and a new-model but beat-up Ford pickup—parked butt end first in an open garage. A cross pole high in the trees supported the hanging carcasses of an elk and what looked like a heavily muscled man.

  I started to point when Cody said, “Bear. Skinned bears look like if you hung a linebacker. It always creeped me out. Melissa, if I were you, I’d not let Angelina see that.”

  “Luckily,” Melissa said from the back, “she’s looking out the other window at the horses.” Three horses, two mules, and a couple of goats watched us from a corral.

  “Quite a place,” Melissa said, deadpan.

  “About what I’d always expected,” I said.

  Uncle Jeter greeted us at the front door with a cheese plate: dozens of overlarge squares of Velveeta hastily cut up on a chipped dinner plate with Ritz crackers piled up in a couple of columns and colored toothpicks bunched together by a rubber band. It struck me as incongruous and sweet that this man, after receiving Cody’s call, set about chopping little squares of cheese with a hunting knife for a snack.

  Uncle Jeter was tall but not as tall as I remembered him, broad but not as wide as I recalled. In fact, he looked distressingly normal, except for the long beard striped with gray and the ponytail that fanned down half of his back. His eyes were the same, though—light blue-gray and piercing, set in hollows that were slightly red-tinged. His nose was large and beaky, complicated with hairlike blue veins. His hands were outsize and looked like mitts. He wore a heavy flannel shirt and a wool Filson vest so old it was shiny, tight Wranglers, and lace-up outfitter boots with heels for riding.

  It was dark inside, the walls covered with tanned bear and elk hides. The antlers of mounted deer and elk served as gun racks for a dozen long rifles and shotguns. The place smelled of smoke, grease, and gun-cleaning solvent. Melissa, Angelina, and I sat on an ancient leather couch with three-quarter wagon wheels on the ends for armrests. Melissa had a tough time keeping our daughter on the couch and not scrambling to the floor. Jeter set the cheese plate next to a six-pack of Molson beer on a coffee table.

  “I’m sorry,” Uncle Jeter said in a gravelly voice to Melissa and Angelina as we entered. “This ain’t no place for a lady and a baby.”

  “It’s fine,” Melissa said, flashing a tight-mouthed smile.

  “No,” he said, “no it ain’t. Is there anything I can get the little one? Some milk or something?”

  Melissa gestured to her overlarge baby bag, and said, “Not necessary—we came prepared.”

  To our surprise, Angelina seemed to be charming him. She’d give him her silly demure look, bat her eyelashes, then cover her face with her hands. It wouldn’t be long before she’d spread her fingers and gaze at him through them, then giggle. I noticed that he had a tough time devoting his attention fully to Cody, who outlined our problem. Despite what Cody had said to us in the car, he didn’t indicate any doubt at all as he told his uncle Hoyt how Garrett and Luis had fouled our house and shot me with paintballs, how Garrett said he owned us now. When Cody told him about Harry, I saw Hoyt’s eyes turn hard.

  When Cody was done, Uncle Jeter sat back and raked his fingers through his beard.

  “So,” he said, “you’ve got a boy who needs scared, and you came to me to do it. Why?”

  Cody deferred to me.

  “Because you scared us.”

  “That was twenty years ago, Jack.”

  Cody leaned forward and handed his uncle the envelope of reports and photos Torkleson had given us. Jeter took it and fanned through the photos of Garrett, while Cody said, “Because you’re not known in Denver, Uncle Jeter. You’ve got no priors down there. I know how things work with the police—where they’d look if something went bad. They wouldn’t look to Lincoln, Montana, unless you did something stupid like dropped your wallet.”

  Or if the Browning Brothers and Chad Kerr in Lincoln were questioned, I thought.

  Uncle Jeter shot him a look that made me fear for Cody.

  “Not that I’m saying something like that would happen,” Cody said, backtracking. “Or even that Garrett would go to the police. The point is for him not to go to the police. The point is for you to persuade him to sign his custody rights away.”

  Hoyt raked his beard again, as if considering all of the odds. “I ain’t done too many things like this in the last few years,” he said. “I might be a little rusty. But you say this Garrett likes to associate with Mexicans, that it makes him feel like a big shot?”

  Cody nodded. “Specifically, a gang called Sur-13.”

  Uncle Jeter turned to Melissa. “I’m sorry, ma’am, would you want to take a few minutes and show the baby the horses outside? I got some horses and two fine mules out there. And a goat, a good goat. He don’t bite. Do you think that little angel might want to see them?”

  Melissa looked at me, and I nodded.

  As soon as the front door shut, Uncle Jeter said, “I got a problem with this illegal immigration. I got a big problem with the way them Mexicans are taking over our cities and flying the Mexican flag and all. A big problem, you understand me?”

  Cody nodded.

  Jeter said, “I called my bank in Helena a couple of weeks ago because they fouled up a deposit I made from a hunting client. They don’t know what to do with cash anymore, it makes their eyes get all buggy. Well, when I called them, I got this recorded message that said press one for English and two for Espanõl. This was Helena, Montana, fellows! I got so goddamned mad I drove down there and took all my money out. When the bank manager asked why I was doing it, I said, ‘Press one for English and two for Espanõl, you little prick!’

  “As I was leaving town I drove by the hospital, and I saw these Mexicans lined up—lined up!—outside the emergency ward. They was carrying their little sick kids and just waiting in line because I guess the doctors have to treat them no matter what. I thought, whose country is this, anyway? What’s wrong with our so-called leaders that sit by while we get infiltrated by our so-called neighbor from the south. Now I hear that some wannabe Mexican and his Mexican gang friends want that little angel out there.” He glared at us and stabbed a long finger toward the front door. “It ain’t right!”

/>   Uncle Jeter was on such a frightening roll I didn’t want to tell him the problem was the judge.

  “Taking down a couple fucking Mexicans don’t bother me at all,” Uncle Jeter said. “Getting this Mexican wannabe to sign a piece of paper sounds like a piece of cake.”

  To demonstrate, he stood up swiftly—much quicker than I thought him capable of—and put an imaginary Garrett in a headlock and fashioned his other hand into a pistol and cocked his thumb back.

  “Remember that scene in The Godfather?” Jeter asked us.

  “Either your name goes on that agreement,” Jeter said in a fake Mexican accent to imaginary Garrett, “or your brains, senõr!”

  He continued to talk to imaginary Garrett, and his playacting was intense, unnerving, as if Garrett were truly in his hands.

  Jeter snarled, “And if you think you can sign this paper, then run off and tell your daddy or the cops that you were coerced, you got another think coming, little senõr. ’Cause if that happens I’m coming back for you and I’m feeding your nuts to my goats. And that’s just for starters, little senõr!”

  He looked up. “Think that’d do it?”

  “Maybe a little more subtle,” Cody said.

  “We’ve got eight days,” I said.

  Uncle Jeter nodded, let the imaginary Garrett drop to the floor, and took a breath to cool down. “Compensation?” he asked.

  “You’ll be working that out with Brian Eastman,” I said. “He’s handling the money.”

  “Brian Eastman?” Jeter asked, rubbing his chin beneath his beard, “Your old pal? Son of the minister?”

  “Yes.”

  “He was queer, wasn’t he?”

  I sighed, “Yes. And he’s helping us out with expenses. He’s done well in Denver.”

  “I bet he has,” Jeter said, sneering. “But fag money is as good as any, I guess.”

  I bit my tongue and glanced at Cody, who was rolling his eyes and shaking his head, embarrassed.

  Jeter said, “Give me a day or two to get my poop in a group. There’s supposed to be a hell of a storm coming first of next week, so I need to get out of here shortly, I guess. I can be in Denver by Tuesday or Wednesday latest. I ain’t seen that city in years. I hear it’s grown like crazy.”

  “It has,” Cody said.

  He turned to his nephew. “You regret leaving Montana and moving to a place like that?”

  Cody nodded. “Lately I have.”

  Jeter nodded back. “Yeah, I can’t see why anyone would want to leave Montana. Makes no sense to me. In my experience all cities are the fucking same—filled with undesirables.”

  I slapped my knees, stood up, and said, “Cody, a minute outside?”

  After he’d shut the door, Cody said, “Second thoughts?”

  “Yes. He’s older and crazier than I remember. I don’t think we can control him or count on him to stop what he’s started.”

  Cody slowly nodded his head. “I agree. He’s not the same guy we remember.”

  “Look, can you just tell him I got cold feet at the last minute, and we can get the hell out of here?”

  Melissa walked up to us holding Angelina. She’d over-heard. “He does seem unstable,” she said.

  Cody barked a short laugh. “He’s always been unstable. It’s hard to find a stable hit man these days. But yes, he’s gotten worse. I guess I didn’t realize how damned old he was.”

  Cody put his hands on our shoulders. “Look, you two get in the car. I’ll go in and tell him you’re reconsidering your options.”

  AS WE DROVE THROUGH LINCOLN, I asked, “How’d he take it?”

  “He’s hard to read,” Cody said. “I think he’s disappointed. He was really getting worked up there.”

  “It was the right choice,” Melissa said from the backseat. “I just wish we had a ready option. Maybe Brian has one if we ask him.”

  Cody snorted. Then: “I wish the old fart had given me that envelope back.”

  FOURTEEN

  HER VOICE WAS HESITANT. Who called on Saturday evening except telemarketers or someone complaining that there were cows on the road? “Hello?”

  “Hi, mom.”

  “Jack!” Her voice was a mixture of excitement and trepidation. I called so rarely that when I did it must be bad news, I knew she was thinking. That tone unnerved me, sent me back in time.

  “We’re driving through Helena and I’ve got Melissa and your granddaughter with me. We’ll be coming down through Townsend and thought maybe we’d stop by.”

  “Oh my! Why didn’t you let us know you were coming?”

  “I’m sorry. Don’t worry about dinner or anything, and I mean that. We just thought you might want to see your granddaughter. Is Dad around?”

  “Oh my, yes! He’s outside doing something with the tractor. I was just starting dinner, and, oh, you’ve got me flustered. I don’t know what to say. Why didn’t you let us know sooner?”

  “It’s a long story,” I said, feeling my face flush. “Look, if this isn’t a convenient time …” I could feel Melissa’s eyes on me from the backseat. How was it that even after seventeen years in the outside world, I instantly reverted back to my sullen high-school-senior self, when I had left the ranch—and them—for good? How quickly I was ready to call it off and go on down the road.

  “No, no! You must come by! I was just so surprised you called. I was just opening a package of steaks and the phone rang and it was you. No, come by. When will you be here?”

  “About forty-five minutes.”

  “Oh my!”

  “Look, Mom …”

  “Goodness. I’ll open another package of steaks. Is it just you and Melissa and the baby?”

  “Cody, too.”

  “Cody! Cody Hoyt?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh my! I’ll go tell your father. Forty-five minutes, now more like forty, I suppose.”

  “Mom, we can grab something to eat. We can take you out to dinner. You don’t have to fix anything. Really!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, a little angry I’d even suggested it.

  I closed the cell and looked back at Melissa. “There, are you happy now?”

  “Aren’t you glad you called?” she said, smiling.

  “I’m not sure. Mom’s in a dither.”

  Cody said, “This is a good thing to establish some cover since everybody and their dog knows we’re up here. If need be, we can always say you decided to visit your folks with Angelina for the last time. That makes perfect sense. And I drove because I don’t have anything else to do.” Then, sourly: “I just hope your old man doesn’t put me to work fixing fence or some damn thing.”

  AS WE CLEARED EAST Helena en route to Townsend, and I saw Canyon Ferry Lake to the left—a few more houses on the banks than I remembered, but not many—I felt a twang of recognition.

  “Hasn’t changed much,” Cody said, as if reading my thoughts.

  “No.”

  “Not like Denver, where there’s a new subdivision every few days,” he said. “It’s frozen in time here. I used to not like that, but now I do.”

  My anxiety grew. I was getting more nervous than I had been earlier in the day on the way to meet with Uncle Jeter.

  “Maybe we should have gotten fast food in Helena,” I said.

  “Your mother would be furious,” Melissa said. “Showing up and not eating? What are you thinking?”

  Cody said, “Saturday night is steak night if I remember. Steak and baked potatoes. Every Saturday night. I wonder if that’s changed?”

  “It hasn’t as far as I know,” I said. “She said something about opening up another package of steaks.”

  “Good steaks, too,” Cody said, nodding. “I can still remember the drill. Pork chops on Monday, spaghetti on Tuesday, hamburgers on Wednesday, cabbage rolls Thursday, pot roast Friday, steaks on Saturday, fried chicken on Sunday.”

  I nodded.

  “Did it ever change?” Melissa asked.

  “Never,” I
said. “If she tried something new, Dad would sit at the table and just stare at his plate and pout.”

  “I really liked the cabbage rolls,” Cody said. “Maybe next time we drive up here to hire a hit man we can come on Thursday.”

  “Cody!” Melissa said. “Stop that. What if Angelina starts using those words?”

  Cody grinned as he slowed down and clicked the turn single, and we were soon on the gravel road that led to the ranch.

  THE HOME RANCH LOOKED almost exactly as I’d left it. A few new things—a bigger gas tank, a larger Quonset for the equipment—but basically the same buildings, the same layout. A few inches of snow lay in the hayfields, and the Big Belt Mountains rose dark blue and snowy to the east. Between the ranch and the mountains, the foothills shimmered with the intense gold light of dusk, the kind that makes snow look like molten lava. I saw a small herd of mule deer hanging around the windmill and tin stock tank. A few hundred bald-faced Angus were bunched in the east meadow, massed and no doubt awaiting the cattle truck.

  We swung into the ranch yard. Through Cody’s window I got a glimpse of Dad in the Quonset working under a trouble light, tractor parts and tools scattered around his feet. On my side, Mom’s face was framed in the kitchen window, looking out anxiously, and as soon as she saw us, she vanished and reappeared at the front door wearing the same apron she’d had on eighteen years before, the one with the blue ducks.

  “Melissa!” she called out. “Bring that little darling in here!”

  “She means Angelina,” Cody deadpanned, “not you.”

  Mom gave me a quick cheek kiss and punched Cody affectionately in the arm to say hello, but both gestures were done en route to Angelina, who she scooped up in her arms. Angelina squealed happily, and Mom turned and took her in the house. Melissa followed with one of the diaper bags and gave me an amused over-the-shoulder look before going inside.

  Cody and I walked over to the Quonset. Cows bawled in the meadow, punctuating the otherwise complete silence. I had forgotten about silence.

  Although they’d been to the wedding and to Denver to see Angelina when we brought her home, I hadn’t been back. I didn’t want to come back and feel like I was feeling now. I didn’t know what to expect, but my heart was thumping, and my hands felt cold.