I could hear the noise of a large vehicle coming up the road behind me. I turned and waited as it crested the hill and slowed to about twenty. The brights clicked on and, with the curve of the road, the headlights were pointed straight at me.
It was a new truck, big and red, a one-ton duellie with an extended cab. It bristled with oversized wheels and tires, fender flares, and a grill guard. It looked for a moment as if the truck were going to stop, but the big Dodge accelerated slightly at the curve, the Cummins diesel clattering along on the gravel road toward the Powder River, and I looked at the reflection of myself in the tinted window as the truck disappeared over the next hill, the next, and the one after that.
It didn’t have any plates.
I tossed the rope onto the passenger-side floor and made Dog move over. As we drove back into Absalom, I mused on the thin line between smitten and stalking. It was obvious that Hershel had some kind of crush on his former employer and I figured it was innocent, but it wouldn’t hurt to have Ruby run a check on the old fellow.
The outpost of a town along the Powder River was still awake when I parked the rental alongside the railroad tracks. I was tired, but I had work to do and it was possible that a portion of the work might be in The AR.
I reached in the open window to get the insurance binder and popped it into the trunk to keep company with my large duffel and a small hard case. I rolled the windows almost up, leaving an opening for Dog, and massaged my temples in anticipation of the headache that was beginning to hit me like a short-handled shovel. I’d have to make an appointment with Doc Bloomfield about these headaches one of these days.
I locked the car, set the alarm so that it wouldn’t go off with movement inside, took a deep breath, and told Dog not to play with the radio; it was our joke-he knew he could play with the radio if he wanted.
It was a mixed lot in The AR, and I had to admit I was a little disappointed to see the middle-aged lawmaker in the Sheridan Seed Company hat behind the bar rather than the young woman. He ignored me as I took the stool nearest the door and propped my elbows on the particleboard. Mercifully, the jukebox was turned down low, and the television was tuned to the weather and on mute.
There were a couple of old ranchers sitting in the gloom at one of the tables, two younger fellows playing eight-ball near the boxing ring, and a large, surly-looking individual in a two-day beard, sunglasses, and a stylish black straw hat at the other end of the bar. He was talking to an elaborately tattooed young woman who held his arm and pressed her hip against his. I smiled and nodded toward them, and they smirked at me.
“What’a ya want?”
I turned, looked at the bartender, and my headache worsened. “The simple, gracious companionship of my fellow man?” He didn’t say anything and continued to stare at me. “Rainier.”
He fished a can out of the cooler and set it on the counter. It was common to have can-only bars in the rougher areas of Wyoming-nobody ever got hurt throwing a can, and nobody in this part of the world ever threw a full one. “Buck-seventy-five.”
I pulled two ones from my jacket pocket and flicked them onto the bar. “Keep the change.” He glanced at me without altering the look on his face and then took the bills and walked away. I’d meant it as an insult, but I wasn’t sure he’d taken it that way. “What happened to the girl who was here this afternoon?”
He punched the numbers on the cash register, and the drawer came open. He shut the drawer and stuffed the money in his shirt pocket. “She don’t work here no more.”
“She quit?” He didn’t answer but continued back to the area I assumed was the kitchen and disappeared.
I sighed and kneaded the back of my neck. There was a piece of paper taped to the bar’s surface announcing the Friday Night Fights, Powder-River-Pound-Down-Tough-Man Contest that had a list of about a half-dozen names.
Jesus wept.
The can was cool, and I held it to my left temple in an attempt to stall the headache that continued to surge there. I wondered if I was doing any good with all of this covert stuff. Then I started wondering about the dubious judgment and apparent difficulties of going undercover in a town of forty people.
“You lost?”
I turned and looked at the surly-looking fellow with the woman attached to his arm and hip, and they both smirked again. I lowered the can. “Nope.”
“I wouldn’t drink that horse-piss on a bet.”
I popped the tab on the can and raised it in salute. “Expense account-don’t want to cost the company too much.”
He lowered his sunglasses and stared at me from under the brim of his stylish hat. With half-eyes evident, he looked like one of those drugstore cowboys who sing shitty songs and sell pickup trucks. “Those insurance companies make enough money, why don’t you buy all of us a drink?”
I sipped my beer. “I’m only here for one.”
He glanced at the bottle blonde. “Seems like I’ve paid enough money in premiums for one lousy drink.”
It was quiet in the bar except for some of the aforementioned modern country music that couldn’t decide what it wanted to be when it grew up and moved to Branson. I put the can back on the stained surface of the cheap bar and looked at the names listed on the sign-up sheet for tomorrow night’s fights-the first name was of interest. “Like I said, I’m only here for one.”
I heard the stool’s legs rub against the floor as he pushed out and then walked toward me. I waited as he pulled the next seat over and sat facing me. “I can’t believe I have to beg a man to buy me a beer.” He turned and looked back at his girl-friend as she continued to smile with only half her face. “Shit, it’s common decency and western hospitality to buy a round.”
I continued to study the bar and, absently, the sheet of paper. My head was killing me now, and this character wasn’t making it any better. “Well, then, why don’t you?”
He was silent for a second and then continued. “I did… earlier.”
“Well, I’m sorry I missed it.”
“Leave him alone, Cliff.”
I recognized the voice and turned my head just a little to see the green-eyed rancher that I’d met at the bridge earlier in the afternoon.
“Oh, he looks like a big boy. I bet he can take care of himself.”
Mike Niall countered as I looked down and closed my eyes in an attempt to loosen the grip of the pain in my head. “Yep, I bet he can. As a matter of fact, I bet he could stick his boot so far up your ass, your breath’ll smell like Kiwi shoe polish, but you work for me now and if you think I’m going to buck bales by myself tomorrow morning, you’ve got another think comin’.”
I could feel the drunken cowboy’s breath on the side of my face. “Are you a fighter, mister?”
The blonde still looked straight ahead but spoke up. “Kick his ass, Cliff.”
I finished off my beer in one swig and placed the empty can back on the bar. There wasn’t anything here for me, my head hurt, I was tired, and it was possible that I’d lose my patience, so I figured the best thing for it was to go get Dog and duffel and head for my bed, which was only four doors down.
I tried to remember if I had any aspirin in my suitcase.
I started to rise and turn, but he placed a powerful and young hand on my shoulder. I continued up as he stood, and we were very close. I was sober and he wasn’t, and that was probably something he was used to, but I was bigger than he was, and that he wasn’t.
You always register the hands. His were occupied, one on my shoulder and the other hitched in his pocket. And register the eyes. One was focused on my face, and the other a little right.
The mechanics of twenty-four years on the job fall into place in these situations, and you don’t have to think about taking the hand on your shoulder by the base and twisting it in a reverse wrist lock that plants his face suddenly and securely on the surface of the bar, about the second hand that pins his neck, and the boot that kicks his feet out and spreads them so that he has no leverage to resis
t.
Drunks can be amazingly intuitive, however, and as I stood there thinking, I was sure he could see the entire scenario playing out in my tired face. His eyes widened a little and then stayed set on mine, his hand still on my shoulder. The bottle blonde had turned and was looking at both of us and it dawned on him that he couldn’t back down, not now. “I’m a fighter.”
The rancher spoke again. “Cliff?”
I didn’t say anything, so he repeated it. “I’m a fighter-” He didn’t sound so sure about it this time and pulled his hand off my shoulder. He stabbed a finger at the piece of paper Scotch-taped on the bar. “That’s me, right there, Cliff Cly. Number one on the list, and you know why that is?”
I still didn’t say anything.
“ ’Cause I’m the toughest bastard on the Powder River.” The rancher behind me snickered, and the self-proclaimed toughest man on the Powder River with the weakest lineage shifted over to get a look at him. “What the hell are you laughing at?”
It was silent for a second. “I’m gettin’ a head start on laughing before you get licked. You’re drunk, Cliff. Sit down.”
“Screw you, old man.”
I heard the chair move and could just make out the shot glass Mike Niall had out on the surface of the bar to my right. “Barkeep!” I could see him approaching from the kitchen as the older rancher continued. “Cliff, if I was you I’d save myself for tomorrow night, ’cause I think you got your work cut out for you.”
The young man breathed a response. “I can kick the shit out of every man on that list.” His eyes shifted back to mine. “You wanna put your name on that list, mister?”
“Is there a problem?” The bartender was just at the other side of the particleboard now, and I could see his hands resting on the shelf that held the baseball bat. I was relieved it wasn’t the next shelf down that held the Winchester pump.
Niall was the first to speak. “Gimme another shot, Pat.” The bartender looked at the two of us for a moment more and then reached behind him for a bottle of Wild Turkey. “There’s a couple of those boys you might have a little trouble with.”
“Like who?”
Pat poured, and Niall sipped his shot and returned it to the bar. “Well, that big buck that came in here this afternoon and gave everybody the hard eye for one.” His eyes drifted toward me. “Big Indian fella came in, didn’t say a word to nobody-just put his name on the list and turned around and walked out.”
I smiled, and Cliff Cly misinterpreted. “You think that’s funny, mister?”
I looked down at the list and continued smiling as my headache lessened just a little. It figured that the other toughest bastard on the Powder River with a lineage that stretched back into the history of this country before there was a country would find a way to provide backup even when it hadn’t been requested.
“I asked you a question.”
I looked at the cowboy for a moment more and then stepped past him and toward the door. I left behind the piece of paper on the bar that announced the Friday Night Fights, Powder-River-Pound-Down-Tough-Man Contest, where the last name on the list was Henry Standing Bear.
4
October 20: seven days earlier, late morning.
I had read the report that’d been faxed from the FBI field office in Denver.
Vic stood over my desk and fidgeted as I looked up from the eighteen pages. “You want me to read aloud?”
“I’ve already read it.”
“So, what does it say?” My undersheriff’s distillation was always more entertaining than the reports from the Feds.
She crossed around the desk and sat in her usual chair. “If she hadn’t killed him, it looks to me like somebody else would’ve, or he would have been spending the rest of his life in a place where there are no light switches and you have to ask to go piss.”
“He was in trouble with the Department of Justice?”
She sipped her coffee but didn’t put her feet up like she usually did; instead, she sat there with her knees bobbing up and down. “Worse.”
I sighed and forced more coffee into my system. “What’s worse than the FBI?”
Vic pushed her nose to her cheek with her index finger. Her voice was nasal, and she emphasized her South Philly accent. “He was made-the operative term here is made-the accountant in charge of operations for a casino operating firm, and in a matter of five years was able to siphon close to three million dollars out of the place.”
“From the mob?”
She released her nose and smiled; she always smiled when she was relaying information like this, the way sharks smile when they see snorklers wearing yellow. “Makes you wonder if he was dropped on his head as a child or if he was eating fucking paint chips like they were Cool Ranch Doritos, doesn’t it?”
“Or he was a lot tougher than anybody gave him credit for.” I flipped to the photo on page two; the deceased was inordinately handsome and could’ve been Italian except for his name. “Barsad doesn’t sound particularly Italian.”
She shook her head. “Wannabe. He started out as Willis Barnecke and worked for an accounting firm that did business for a number of casinos in Atlantic City, where he comes in contact with Joey ‘Suits’ Venuto and was offered a job. He took the job and the three-very-very-large, but when the Fed turned up the heat after a waterfront-based racketeering investigation where a competitor ended up shot to death in the trunk of his own car in Union, New Jersey, Willis’s name started popping up on FBI wiretaps like Whack-A-Mole.”
“He killed somebody?”
“Inconclusive.” She set her mug on my desk and laughed. “He gets locked up for a DWI in Atlantic City but as thick as he was spreading it, you’d have thought he was the capo of capos. He drove around with an Italian flag on his car, for Christ’s sake, and had Sinatra sound bites on his cell phone.”
“How did he end up in Ohio?”
She continued to smile the saltwater crocodile smile. “This is the good part. Now, just on the offhand chance, the feds bring Willis in and tell him that they know he was the one that did the guy in Union-and lo and behold, Willis ‘Canary’ Barnecke starts singing like Frank at the Stardust. He names names from exit 9A to 16B on the Jersey Turnpike and assists the DOJ in obtaining about a half-dozen convictions. He gives up a lot but not everything because I guess he’s just a certain brand of moron. Evidently, he had a list somewhere, and the DOJ wants it ever so bad.”
“A list?”
“In his short time in the slam, he got in the habit of making kites-notes on tiny pieces of paper. The agent I talked to in Denver said Barsad never got out of the habit and that they found a lot of them, but not the one with the names.” She paused, looked at her coffee, but didn’t pick it up. “Now, what do you do with someone like that once they’ve finished testifying as much as they’re gonna?”
The hand that was holding up my chin slipped over and covered my face. I peeked at her from between my fingers. “Witness protection?”
“Hello, Youngstown, Ohio, where Willis, now known as Wallace Balentine via the Feds, gets a job accounting for Central Ohio Steel, wears a tie, and reinvents himself as a pillar of midwestern society. Gets in touch with some of his old buddies in an attempt to make good, and in three years he accumulates another tidy nest egg before being fired and sued by the owners. Wallace Balentine settles out of court for an undisclosed amount, which the owners say is far less than the amount he embezzled, but that puts him in the papers and soon he has to reinvent himself once again, just a little farther west. First Las Vegas, then here.”
I sighed the words. “Rancher Wade Barsad?”
She picked up her coffee. “Powder River, let’er buck.”
I played with the handle on my mug. “It all makes sense; people have been hiding in that Powder River country for over a hundred years.”
She stood when I did and walked out to the dispatch desk where Ruby was going over the reports from DCI. I leaned against the counter, and Ruby started to hand them
to me. “Did you read them?”
She batted her neon-blue eyes over her lowered glasses with the pearl string, more than giving the impression of a second-grade schoolteacher. “Yes.”
I nodded and then crossed to the wooden bench beside the steps, I preferred audio most times. “Let’s have it, Sparky.”
Ruby frowned-she disliked nicknames. “She doesn’t stand much of a chance.”
Vic had taken the report and was silently reading. She looked up. “His body was incinerated.” She crossed her legs and leaned an elbow on the counter. “But they found all six melted slugs in his skull.” Having sensed my dissatisfaction, Dog ambled from behind Ruby’s desk and came around to rest his head on my knee. “The report said that the fire, possibly started by lightning, possibly not, actually began with the barn and then drifted over and burned the house.”
“That must’ve been a fun one for T.J. and the bag boys.” I petted Dog’s broad head. “Where was the confession taken?”
Ruby blinked and watched me. “At the scene.”
I nodded and stared at the pattern of the old wooden floor and at the sway in the marble step at the landing. I thought about how many times my boots had hit that step, having first noticed it when my daughter had picked it as the favorite place to sit her six-year-old butt.
Cady hadn’t called recently, and it was weighing heavily on me. She and Michael, Vic’s younger brother, were seeing a lot of each other, and I was thankful for the attention the Philadelphia patrolman was lavishing on her, but I wondered where it was all leading. She’d been in an extremely bad relationship before Michael, one that had ended in her being severely injured. “And the statement was?”
Vic read from the file. “ ‘I dreamed of shooting the son-of-a-bitch, I dreamed about it every night and I finally did it. I shot him, I shot him six times.’ ”
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