Carnival

by William W. Johnstone

“Some of them have been with the Bar-S and the Double-W all their lives. More than a few were born right there on the spreads. They’re almost all local people.”

  Dick agreed. “And they might have had something to do with that carnival fire years back—is that what you’re getting at?”

  Martin nodded his head and spat out a glob of blood from a cut inside his mouth. “The sorry bastard can throw a punch, I’ll give him that.”

  Dick chuckled and then sobered. “Lyle Steele will not forget this day, Martin. Tattoo that on your arm and keep a good eye on your back trail. And tell your kids to be careful. Lyle isn’t wrapped too tight and neither is that punk kid of his. Both of them are as crazy as road lizards.”

  “If you feel that way, Dick, why do you work for Lyle?”

  “Money. Pure and simple. He’s a jackasss, but he pays top wages. Provides me and the family with a nice house, all utilities paid, and gives me a good bonus at year’s end.” He smiled. “I have a master’s degree in Agri-business, Martin. I not only run the ranch operation, but I run the farming end of it too. Couple more years, and I’ll be able to head on back to Montana and add to my little spread up there.”

  “And Lyle Steele can go to hell.”

  “That’s probably not quite as strong as what I’ll tell him when that day comes.”

  And Martin had made yet another friend that day.

  Gary and Audie and Don joined them. Don told the foreman he was quitting and Dick congratulated him on finally showing some good sense.

  Gary said, “I can tell you only this about Red’s death: nothing human did it.”

  The foreman sighed audibly. “I think I’ll send the wife and kids back up to Montana for a week or so. Be on the safe side. She’s been wantin’ to see her mother anyway.”

  “No tracks that I can pick up,” Audie informed them. “Horse or vehicle or foot. Nothing.” He shook his head. “I’ve got to call the sheriff about this. Too much has happened for him to be left out in the cold and uninformed.” He walked back to his Blazer to call in to the Holland P.D. They would relay to the county seat. From this point, almost eighty miles away.

  “You need me anymore, Deputy?” Dick called.

  Audie stopped and turned around. “No. This’ll do it, Dick. Thanks for sticking around. And, Dick, keep this under your hat, OK?”

  “No sweat. Audie, when you find out if any of, well, the theory you all share is true, or not true, let me know, will you?”

  “I think you’ll know, Dick,” Martin took it. “I think we’re all going to know at just about the same time. Will you be coming into town for the fair?”

  “I think I’d better.”

  “Then I’ll see you there. Stop by the house for a drink.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  After the foreman of the Bar-S had left, Don said, “I forgot to tell you all something. I don’t know whether this has anything at all to do with this ... murder, but I can tell you it was just about the oddest thing I ever had happen to me.”

  He told them about hearing, or thinking he was hearing, the truck starter grinding and the moaning and the voice calling out about coming home, or wanting to come home, or something like that, way out to hell and gone in the empty grasslands.

  Martin and Gary exchanged quick glances, each one thinking about Martin’s dad, murdered and buried, truck and all, up near the state line.

  Martin shook his head, absolutely refusing to accept that. “No.”

  Don looked at him. “Beg pardon, sir?”

  “Nothing. It isn’t important.” But he couldn’t turn loose of it. “Don, do you think you could find this place again?”

  “Well ... I could probably get you to within fifty yards of it, I guess.” He looked at the men. Tried to grin; didn’t quite make it. “Ah, people, you guys don’t think, I mean, you, ah, don’t think that there’s anything to what I just said, do you?”

  “We’ll brief you on that later, Don,” Gary told him. “How about your horse and your gear at the ranch?”

  “I’ll pick up some things in town. I don’t want nothing out of that cabin, and feelings are going to be kind of hard against me at the ranch. I’d as soon avoid the ranch. We’ll turn the horse loose. It’ll find its way home. But the saddle is mine.”

  “We’ll stop on the way back. How about any wages due you?”

  “Dick will see that I get them. Don’t worry about that. He’s arrow-straight.”

  “There are sheets and blankets stored at the yard, Don,” Martin told him. “Pick out a company truck and use it as your own. The bedding will have to be laundered. Place not far from the yard. And Don, whatever we tell you on the way back to town, and what you’ve seen out here, don’t repeat any of it, okay?”

  He nodded his understanding just as Audie walked back to the group.

  “I got Miller’s coming out to body bag the pieces.” He looked at Gary. “You’ll want an autopsy.”

  Gary nodded. “What about Sheriff Grant?”

  “Out of town. Gone to some law enforcement seminar out of state. Chief deputy’s gone to Florida to pick up a prisoner. Left this morning. I didn’t say anything to the chief investigator about what’s happened up here; except to tell him there’d been a murder. No details. Maybe I should have. But I didn’t.”

  “Perhaps that’s for the best,” Gary agreed. “Hell, who would believe us? Anyway, when is this state investigator coming in?”

  “She’ll probably check in late this afternoon or early evening. I got her a room at the motel. Name is McClain. Frenchy McClain. And she’s good. Knows her business. She’s quick and tough. Dropped the hammer on two people over the years. Killed both of them.”

  “There’s aren’t many women with the state police, are there?” Don asked.

  Audie grinned. “Not any like Frenchy. She’s a knockout. You’ll see.”

  * * *

  Monday morning.

  Martin had run his miles and done his exercises. Back at the house, he had showered and changed clothes and was sitting on the front porch, drinking coffee and watching the sun unfold the new day. But he couldn’t make the term “nice morning” fit. It was a different kind of morning. One that Martin didn’t like but could not put a finger on the why of that feeling. He struggled to find a word that fit it. Tainted, came to him. There was a flatness to the dawning. He had noticed it while running. The dogs were not barking and playing and running along with him as many of them did. They lay under or on the porches, silently watching him as he jogged past. They were not unfriendly ... that was not the mood Martin felt from the animals. Wary, was more like it. Suspicious. Like they could sense some ... dreadful thing about to enter and alter their lives. Only a fool believed that animals could not sense an approaching storm or a bad change in the weather.

  And they were sure sensing something this day.

  Gary had spent several hours Sunday afternoon patching up the men and women involved in the hotel fracas and he had later told Martin that the people could remember absolutely nothing about it. They were alternately astonished or outright indignant and disbelieving when he told them what had happened.

  A strangeness was overtaking the town. And Martin could not help but connect deadly with it.

  Don Talbolt had his quarters as clean and neat as that much-talked-about pin, and was settling right in.

  And Alicia was furious at Martin for, as she had put it, “Getting into a fist-fight like some common cowhand in a drunken barroom brawl.”

  Martin had laughed at her—at first:

  Alicia had always been a tad on the snooty side, but of late, she had become almost unbearable with her haughtiness. There were things—and Martin would agree with her in most instances—that decent people just did not engage in. And brawling was one of them. Only the lowest classes beat each other about the head and shoulders with their fists. According to Alicia.

  Martin wasn’t particularly worried about Alicia’s newest opinion of him. She’d either get over
it or she wouldn’t. But she had irritated him last night by harping about the fight. It seemed to Martin that she was deliberately trying to bring something to a head; but he couldn’t imagine what. She kept complaining about what other people might think about his fighting Lyle Steele. Martin had finally told her to shut up about it.

  She had then puffed up like a spreading adder and ordered him to leave their bedroom and sleep in the guest room. Martin had looked at her and told her if she wanted to sleep alone then she could leave the room.

  Which she had promptly done, stalking out in a cold, silent huff.

  He had not seen her that morning. But out of pure spite—amazing how delicious-feeling it was—he had dressed in old jeans and old worn—but comfortable—cowboy boots, and denim western shirt with a frayed collar and cuffs. He knew, of course, how she despised seeing him in that kind of attire.

  It was very childish, and he knew it. But he gleefully did it anyway. And to make matters worse—to Alicia’s mind, when she did see him that morning—he had gone down to the basement storage room and found his battered old Stetson hat. It was now tilted back on his head.

  Now was one of those rare moments when he wished he’d gotten a tattoo in the Army.

  It promised, he thought with a smile, to be a very interesting morning.

  Those words would return to haunt him.

  The kids were up and moving around; he could hear them talking in low tones in the house. They probably would not tarry this morning, having heard their parents quarrel the night before, something they rarely did. But, Martin recollected, over the past six or eight months, their quarreling had taken on a seriousness and bitterness. They had quarreled more in the past half year than in all the previous married years combined.

  Martin waved at a neighborhood teenager passing by on her way to school. It was to be a short school week in Holland. School would be dismissed at noon Wednesday, enabling the kids to put the final touches on their fair projects.

  The word “final” seemed to stick in Martin’s mind.

  Odd.

  Mark and Linda joined him on the porch, Mark with a cup of coffee and Linda with a Coke. His daughter took in her father’s slightly swollen lip, the bruise and cut on the side of his face, and his battered hands.

  “Mom’s up,” she informed him, then cut her eyes to her brother.

  “That’s nice. How is your mother this morning?”

  “In a bad mood,” his son told him. “I said good morning and I thought she was going to look out the window to check it.”

  Martin laughed. He stopped laughing when Linda said, “She’s packing, dad. I don’t know what she’s planning on doing.”

  There was something in his daughter’s tone and in both his kids’ eyes that told Martin they both did indeed know what was going on. He didn’t pursue it. He nodded his head and dug in his pocket, handing the kids some bills, not looking to check the denominations. “Go get you some breakfast at the Dog’s Puddle, or whatever that place is called where you kids hang out.”

  She laughed at him. “It’s Chicken & Dog, dad!”

  “Whatever.”

  Linda studied him, checking out his clothing and hat. “You mind if I say something, dad?”

  “You probably will anyway. You both got your mother’s good looks and my mouth.”

  She grinned. “You look funky!”

  * * *

  “What is this, Alicia?”

  She glanced up from her packing. Martin stood in the doorway to their bedroom. Theirs, but for how long? Martin thought.

  “I’m moving my things down the hall.” Her tone was very cool. She studied his attire through decidedly hostile eyes, her gaze finally settling on his old hat. “Good God, Martin! You look positively dreadful.”

  “Thank you.” He wondered if dreadful and funky lay on the same plane. “How long is this change in sleeping habits going to last?”

  “I don’t know, Martin. And that is a totally honest answer.”

  “You want to talk about it?”

  “We have. Over and over. It doesn’t seem to do any good.”

  That confused him. He wasn’t certain what she was talking about. “This—” He waved his hand at the pile of clothing on the bed, “—is rather sudden, isn’t it?”

  “No. Not really. If you’d paid attention to details you would have known that it’s been building for quite some time.”

  “I knew something was bothering you. But I didn’t know it was this serious. Could have fooled me.”

  The look she gave him shook him right down to his old cowboy boots. It told him that she had been fooling him, and for some time. “Well. I ... see.”

  “I rather doubt it, Martin. Your sensitivity level is rather low.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “There isn’t another man.” She said it quickly. Too quickly to suit Martin.

  “Another woman?” he tried a joke.

  “Don’t be disgusting!” she snapped back.

  He stepped into the room, pushed aside the pile of blouses, and sat down on the bed. “Maybe you need a vacation, Alicia. Might be a good time for it. Name your spot. I’ll take care of the kids.”

  “Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  With a sigh and a shake of his head, he said, “Alicia, what do you mean by that?”

  “Read anything into it you like.”

  “My God, the possibilities are endless. Alicia, do you feel all right?”

  She turned, facing him squarely. “I think, Martin, that I feel better than I have in years. And I should have done this years ago, I suppose. But the children ...” She let that drift off. “Anyway, the children are old enough to understand this and to take it all well enough.”

  “Wait a minute!” Martin almost shouted the words. “Just hold on. Correct me if I’m wrong. But the way I’m reading this is you’re going to walk right past the guest room and out the front door. Now you tell me if I’m reading something into this scenario that isn’t there?”

  “That last sentence is very apropos, Martin.”

  “What?”

  “You know very well what my major was in college, Martin.”

  He got it then. How could he have ever forgotten? “Oh, no!” he said wearily.

  “Yes.” The one word held enough frost to ruin a spring garden. “That’s the very way you’ve summed up my feelings for years. And quite frankly, Martin, I’m tired of it.”

  A line from Gone With The Wind sprang into Martin’s head. The very last line.

  Alicia had majored in drama at the university. But she was just not a good actress.

  “Honey,” Martin said patiently, thinking this was all covered ground, “I told you years ago, when you came up with this little theatre idea, that I’d back you.”

  “I have money of my own, Martin! she popped at him.” I don’t need your money. What I needed was your personal support, and you did not give it to me.”

  What you wanted was for me to tell you you were another Faye Dunaway, and baby, you ain’t. “Alicia! I’m not an actor. I’m a businessman, with a lot of businesses in this area to look after. Not to mention a ranch and farm operation down in Colorado, a mine and mineral—”

  She cut the air with a curt slash of her hand. “Enough! she shouted at him. ”I don’t need to be reminded of your great wealth, Martin. Great wealth!” she said contemptuously, her eyes sweeping him. He could feel the scorn from across the room and wondered if what was taking place in town had anything to do with this? ”You look like some saddlebum.”

  He couldn’t help it; a smile played around his lips. “I can say with all honesty, Alicia, that I dressed just for you.”

  “I certainly don’t doubt that!” she came right back at him. “And to me, that is just another indication of your tastelessness and your utter lack of respect and support for me.”

  Martin got a little hot under his battered hat at that. “Alicia, I told you when you started this theatre group thing i
t would flop. This town is simply not big enough to support it. Or cultured enough, for that matter; and it hurts me to say that. This is cowboy country. Honey, you know that I enjoy the plays and the opera and the ballet on PBS—we’ve always watched them together. But I am not an actor!” He flung his arms wide, wincing slightly at the pain from Steele’s blows that he’d blocked with his arms. “And I will not make a fool of myself by wandering around on stage, wearing a mini-skirt and carrying a wooden sword and yelling, Et tu, Brute!”

  The look in her eyes summed it all up. That, and a whole lot more.

  And Martin could not believe it; did not want to believe it. There had to be some other explanation. Something else behind it all. “Alicia, what are you holding back from me? Why not get it all out into the open, now, and let’s talk it out.”

  She sighed and shook her head. “Because you just can’t, or won’t, see it, Martin.”

  “Well, obviously I don’t. That’s why I’m requesting we talk about it.”

  “You’re not going to like it, and believe this or not, I don’t want to hurt you. I want us to be friends.”

  The kiss of death from a woman’s mouth, Martin recalled. Anytime a woman says, “Oh, but I do want us to be friends,” hang it up, find your shoes, and start looking for the door. “Uh-huh. Right,” was all he could trust himself to say at that moment.

  “Martin, you are perfectly content to remain exactly as you are.” She arched an eyebrow as she eyeballed his bruised face. “Perhaps even to regress some. But I, on the other hand, wish to grow. Now ... don’t sit there all dressed up in your cowboy clothes and look so startled. You know it’s true. We’ve discussed this very thing time after time, and you haven’t made any effort to change.”

  And, he was forced silently to admit, they had discussed it. But he had never taken her threats of leaving seriously.

  “All right, Alicia. So say it. Are you leaving, or not?”

  “You really want to press the issue, don’t you, Martin?”

  He shrugged. “Why drag it out? If you’ve made up your mind, so be it.”

  “Very well. Perhaps that is for the best. Mark can remain here. I shall take Linda, of course.”

  That got Martin hot. He pointed a finger at her. “You walk out that door, the kids stay right here, with me! For when you walk, with your only reason for doing so some unfulfilled, middle-aged theatrical urgings, that is desertion on your part, just any ol’ way you want to cut it. Now you hear me well, Alicia. You want a nasty court fight that I guarantee will last well past Linda’s eighteenth birthday, you just try to take her. You push me on this and I’ll have Linda on a plane bound for a girl’s school in Europe in the morning!” He shouted the last, rising from the bed, his bulk huge in the bedroom and his bruised face flushed with anger.