The Prairie Chicken Kill

by Bill Crider

  That, and the fact that she'd run to Lance again. She always seemed to wind up with Lance.

  I should have seen through her from the first, of course, but my old feelings for her got in the way. There's nothing quite as debilitating as the ghost of a memory, especially the memory of adolescent love.

  "Why don't you put down the pistol, Tru?" Lance said. "You could shoot me, I suppose, but what good would it do?"

  He had a point. I laid the pistol on the floor, and Anne walked over to stand beside him. He took the shotgun from her and said, "I'm sorry things ended up like this, Tru."

  "I'll bet." He didn't sound sorry to me.

  "I'm not making a joke," he said. "I really am sorry. Anne told me that I shouldn't try to do things the hard way. But I had a dead man to explain away. I knew Peavy wasn't satisfied with things, and I knew Paul was meddling. If you'd just given Evans to them, things would have been fine."

  "Sure. Peachy. I'd like to know two more things, by the way."

  "What's that?"

  "Did you really call Paul the night he died, or did Anne just say there'd been a call?"

  "What difference does that make?"

  "None, I guess."

  Except to me. I wondered if she'd coldly sent him to his death or whether she'd just let Lance or Gar summon him there.

  "Fine. What's the second thing?"

  "Are you still pissed off because I broke your nose?"

  Dino grinned at that, but Lance didn't. He said, "Gar, I think you'd better take them downstairs and put them in the car. You can dispose of them elsewhere. I don't want to mess up the decor in here. They should have some sort of tragic accident that won't reflect on me. A car wreck would be nice."

  Everyone had been watching me closely because I was the one nearest the pistol. Dino had managed to slide a step toward Lance, which put him close enough to make a jump for the shotgun. As soon as Gar started toward me, Dino made his move.

  He lunged at the shotgun and got both hands around the barrel, twisting it upward just as the gun exploded, sending a tight pattern of shot into the ceiling, which erupted into a sheetrock shower.

  I dived for the Mauser and got my fingers on it, but Gar was even quicker than I'd remembered. He landed on me like a hummer with a load of bricks. I collapsed beneath him like a paper bag, and the pistol skittered under the couch.

  I couldn't get my breath with Gar on top of me, and I'm sure he knew it. To make things worse, he got an arm around my throat and began to choke me.

  I felt my head swelling up like a Prairie Chicken's neck sac. It was probably about the same color, too. I was glad I couldn't see it.

  I figured I had about ten seconds left to live, maybe less. There was nothing at all I could do to save myself.

  I tried to think some profound thought to go out on, but it was no use. All I could think of was that Evelyn would probably take care of Nameless if Dino was killed too.

  I was seeing bright yellow lights behind my eyelids and things were just about to go completely black when I heard something that sounded like a wooden bat connecting for a solid base hit.

  The pressure around my neck was gone, and I sucked in huge gasps of air.

  The shotgun went off again, and I heard glass breaking. Then I heard Dino yell.

  I opened my eyes. Everything was blurry, but I could see that Gar had knocked Dino down and was kneeling on his chest. While I watched, he hit him twice, his fist moving so rapidly that I could hardly follow it.

  I didn't know where the shotgun was, or Lance, or Anne, but I knew I had to try to help Dino. I got up and tried to suck in some air. I got a little, but I got a lot of sheetrock dust, too. Coughing and sneezing, I made a drunken leap at Gar, who was so surprised to see me coming that he almost didn't have time to react.

  Almost is the key word. He got up a hand and batted me to one side, but I somehow managed to stick a finger in his eye. I gave a hard twist and tried to pop his eyeball out, but I didn't succeed. He yelled, though, and I knew I'd hurt him.

  He leaned back, shouting something I couldn't quite understand, then rolled to his feet and aimed a kick at my head.

  I scrambled out of the way, and Dino got up. He put his head down and ran straight at Gar, who had his hands over his eye.

  Blood was running down his cheek. I thought at first it was coming from his eye, but then I noticed a gash on his forehead. Dino must have hit him with the shotgun, but it hadn't slowed him down much.

  While Gar pawed at his eye, Dino shoved him backward a few feet, and I got up to do what I could to help, which wasn't going to be much. I was still having trouble just trying to breathe.

  Gar swung at Dino with one hand, but Dino dodged away. The eye had slowed Gar down a bit. Or maybe the blow from the shotgun was finally bothering him.

  Dino charged again, and this time I was right beside him.

  "Shove the son of a bitch through the window," Dino said.

  Gar was pounding at us with one oak-hard fist, but we forced him slowly back, his shoes squeaking on the hardwood floor.

  "Now!" Dino said. "Shove him!"

  I shoved, and so did Dino. Gar stumbled backward a half step, tried to stop, couldn't, and crashed into the thick plate glass window. In its original state it might have been strong enough to stop even Gar, but the noise I had heard a few seconds before was the sound of a shotgun blast striking the glass, which was now considerably weakened.

  Gar went right on through, with a silvery splintering crash. He was followed out into the late afternoon light by hundreds of slivers of glass that glittered like red and gold rain in the sunset light.

  There was a loud thud when Gar hit the ground, but he didn't cry out. Glass jangled after him.

  I stood for a second with my hands on my knees, and soon I could breathe a bit more easily. Then I turned to see what else had happened.

  The shotgun was lying near an end table, where it had fallen after knocking off a lamp.

  Lance was lying on the floor with Anne kneeling beside him.

  "What happened to him?" I asked Dino.

  Dino grinned. "I think I broke his nose," he said.

  Twenty-seven

  "What I want to know," Dino said the next day, "is who killed the damn Prairie Chicken."

  We were sitting in his living room watching TV. Or Dino was watching. Even while we talked, he didn't take his eyes off it. I was drinking a Big Red and trying to ignore the infomercial about some kind of little bullet-shaped instrument called the Stimulator that was supposed to relieve any kind of pain you might have by administering a small electric shock to whatever part of your body it was applied to.

  I sort of wished I had one, actually. I had quite a few places that I could try it out on.

  "I don't know who killed the Prairie Chicken," I said. "But it had to be either Lance or Anne. I don't know why I didn't figure that out right from the beginning, and maybe I would have if Red had told me how hard it was to catch a sight of them. Whoever killed that bird had to know his way around the ranch. Or her way around. Whoever it was had to be able to find the birds and get close enough for a shot. Red could have done it, but of course he didn't."

  "What about that York guy?"

  "He might have been able to do it, but he didn't have access to the ranch like Anne and Lance did. It had to be one of them. They did it to get me there, that's all."

  "Too bad you didn't turn out to be quite as dumb as they thought."

  "Ignorance is bliss," I said.

  "I heard about that," Dino said. "I never really believed it, though."

  I'd never really believed it, either, but I think my life would have been quite a bit more blissful if I'd never gone to Picketville, never seen Anne or Lance again.

  "What do you think'll happen to them?" Dino asked.

  "Depends on what Gar has to say when he gets out of traction."

  "Could have been us in traction," Dino said. "Or in the morgue. You told me not to worry, that you had a pistol. Eve
rything would be fine, you said."

  "I was wrong."

  "You can say that again."

  "I was -- "

  "Hey, don't say it again. I was only kidding."

  I shut my mouth and Dino turned back to the TV set. After watching testimonials for a minute or so he said, "You think that thing really works?"

  "I don't know. Right now I'd like to give it a try."

  "Takes four to six weeks for shipping," Dino said. "Otherwise I'd call that 800 number right now."

  "You know what?" I said.

  "What?"

  "You and Evelyn and Cathy and I ought to drive up and see Red one day soon, let him take us on a tour of the ranch. Those Prairie Chickens are really something to see. And it may be your last chance."

  Dino didn't look at me. "It's a long way up there," he said.

  "It's not so far. You wouldn't even have to get out of the car if you didn't want to."

  "Too much wide-open space for me. You can probably see for miles."

  "That's true," I said. "But these birds might not be around much longer. They might all disappear during our lifetime. You should have a look at them."

  "I'll think about it," he said.

  I let him think about it while I remembered the booming sound and the way the male bird's feet had pattered the ground, so fast that even through the binoculars they were nothing more than a blur.

  Then I thought about Anne and Lance. I decided that I was right about one thing: People never change. Lance was a lot richer, but somewhere inside he was still a sneak who didn't want to get hurt and who sent someone like Gar to do the dirty work. Anne was still the girl who'd wanted more from life than someone like me or Paul Lindeman could give her.

  And of course I was still their stooge.

  The infomercial ended, and Dino used his complicated remote to turn off the TV set.

  "How long would it take us to get there?" he asked.

  "An hour and a half. About."

  "And I wouldn't have to get out of the car?"

  "Not if you didn't want to."

  "Cathy might not want to have anything to do with you, the way you went chasing off after Anne."

  "I've talked to Cathy. She'd love to go."

  "Well," Dino said.

  He turned the TV set back on. Dick Clark was hawking a set of CDs.

  "You got those?" Dino asked.

  "No. But it's a great set."

  He put the remote on his coffee table and we watched a very short clip of Jerry Lee Lewis.

  "I'll go," Dino said. "If Evelyn wants to."

  "I've talked to her, too. She's ready any time you are."

  "Not today," he said.

  "OK. Saturday?"

  "Yeah. I guess. Tell me about those birds again."

  He turned off the TV set, and I told him.

  If you enjoyed this novel, check out the other books in the Truman Smith mystery series:

  Dead on the Island (Truman Smith #1)

  Gator Kill (Truman Smith #2)

  When Old Men Die (Truman Smith #3)

  Murder Takes a Break (coming Feb 2012)