Cody grunted a response. “That’s what Ned was talking about when he told me some folks around here are mad ’cause he’s digging too close to some of these springs. So you run some folks off for him?”
“Sure ’nough. That big-titted gal brung ’em out, but when we asked if she had permission to be diggin’, she hauled it on out of there.”
“Scottie?”
“You know her?”
“Know of her, like ever’body else.” Cody grinned. “They were out prospecting?”
“Yep.” Jimmy Foxx carved on a ragged thumbnail.
“What were y’all doing out there?”
“Huntin’, a ’course.”
“With or without permission?”
Ty Cobb scratched under his cap. “Don’t know which. Didn’t ask.”
They watched a beat-up fifty-nine Plymouth roll to a stop in front of the store. Ike Reader emerged, looking embarrassed to be driving a car instead of his truck. Miss Mable stepped out of the backseat and waved.
Cody couldn’t resist. “Miss Mable. Whatcha got in your overnight bag today?”
She set a battered blue train case beside Jimmy Foxx and flipped the metal latches. It was filled with baby chicks that popped their heads up and looked around, peeping at the sudden light.
The men chuckled. Cody reached out and lowered the lid before they could jump out in the cold. “You taking ’em in to sell?”
“Why, gracious no. I’m keepin’ ’em in there so my cat don’t get ’em while I’m gone.”
“Shoulda thought of that.”
Miss Mable locked the case, waved goodbye, and walked around behind the store.
Ike Reader couldn’t stand not being part of the conversation. “Boys. Listen listen. Y’all know this is the wife’s car, but my brakes went out on the truck and I had to carry it over to Tim’s for him to fix ’em. Good thing too, ’cause I picked Miss Mable up out by Arthur City and she was so tired I doubt she coulda climbed up in the truck, even with the running boards.”
“I wasn’t gonna say anything, Ike.” Cody grinned and crossed his arms. “But your old lady’s gonna be mad when she sees how much mud you got packed in those wheel wells.”
“Well, I been huntin’ and almost got stuck.”
Jimmy Foxx’s interest perked up. “Get your deer?”
“Sure ’nough. It’s in the trunk.”
Ty Cobb winced. “It’s gonna be full of blood.”
“I put some ’toesacks under it.”
Jimmy Foxx pushed off the car. “Let’s see it.” They followed Ike to the back and he raised the trunk. A huge ten-point buck was curled up like a dog and appeared to be sleeping instead of dead.
Jimmy Foxx leaned in close. “Good lord. That’s the purdiest rack I’ve seen on a deer in ages.”
Ty Cobb pushed in beside him. “Ike, how come you to curl him up like that?”
“I didn’t. I just heaved him in and closed the lid. I shoulda gone ahead and gutted him, though. I nearly herniated myself trying to get that big bastard in there.”
Standing beside the back bender, Cody glanced in from the side. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think it was just sleeping.”
All four men stiffened when the deer slowly raised its head and blinked.
“It’s alive,” Jimmy Foxx whispered.
“It can’t be.” Ike crossed his arms and stepped back to argue. “I hit that thing so hard with the car it was knocked forty feet. You can see the dent in the fender. It was dead when I threw it in.”
“I thought you said you shot a deer.” Ty Cobb turned to face Ike.
The little farmer planted his feet. “I said I got a deer. You asked me if I got a deer, and I said yes. I didn’t lie. I ain’t like that.”
He was interrupted when the deer regained its senses and proceeded to kick the living dog-water out of the trunk and the backs of the taillights. For some unknown reason Ike Reader rushed to the car, reached in and grabbed the buck’s antlers like he was going to hold it still. The deer braced its back feet against what was left of the passenger seat, planted his forelegs on the edge and leaped out. The buck’s head hit Ike squarely in the nose so hard that water squirted from seven orifices.
They all agreed later the sound of their heads smacking together was like a raw egg dropped into a mixing bowl.
While Ike held his bleeding nose, the deer ran off down the highway toward Lake Chisum with the Wilson boys trailing behind, howling and loading their rifles. Cody watched them go.
It was the first time he’d laughed in days.
Chapter Sixty-five
Pepper and Mark were in her living room by the fireplace, enjoying the winter smell of woodsmoke. The big windows leaked cold air. They were listening to Tommy James and the Shondells on Pepper’s radio and watching the last of the leaves drop off the red oaks in the Ordway House’s front yard.
Miss Mable came around Neal’s store and passed on the oil road. Pepper nudged Mark and pointed. “Looky there. She’s flat-out crazy, walking in this cold, and without a coat.”
A sadness fell over Mark in a dispirited wave. He’d seen people living not far from his aunt’s house in Oklahoma who barely had a decent shirt to wear outside, let alone a good coat.
“Don’t your mama have one we could give her?”
“I’ll go ask.”
The song “Mony, Mony” ended at the same time a car pulled up in front of the white two-story. Mark ran his fingers though his long hair to get it out of his eyes. “Do you know whose car that is?”
“No.” Pepper turned down her radio, curious to see who would get out.
Three men waited inside while the shifty looking driver wearing a turtleneck and a coat buckled at the waist knocked on the door. Mark felt the hair rise on his arms at the way the man’s eyes darted everywhere. Life had taught him to respect his instincts. Pepper started to answer, but he held her back. “Wait.”
She frowned. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Something ain’t right.”
“It’s a car. What’s not right with a car?”
“I don’t like cars full of nothing but men. Not that many men.”
Ida Belle came from the kitchen. “I’ll get it. You kids wait right here.” She opened the wooden door, but left the screen latched. “Hello?”
The man stuffed both hands into his coat pockets. His three-day stubble covered a dimple in his chin like Kirk Douglas’, and Mark didn’t like that, either. “Howdy. We’re from Dallas and looking for a girl named Scottie. We heard tell she knows more about this buried treasure than she’s lettin’ on. We’d like to talk to her.”
Pepper and Mark looked through the windows. “Shit! Look at that stupid coat. It has more pockets than all my clothes put together.”
“You better lower your voice. He might hear you.”
“So what?”
Ida Belle shook her head. “That’s just a story started by my daughter. There’s not any gold.”
“We heard about it in Dallas, then a few minutes ago over at that little grocery.”
“That’s none of my business. We can’t help you.”
Pepper turned to Mark, fear in her eyes. “It went all the way to Dallas? Shit, I just wanted to get that big-titted gal’s goat. I didn’t mean for it to turn out like this.”
“Shhh.” Mark took her arm.
“Y’all better leave…” Ida Belle quit talking when the doors slammed and the car’s occupants kicked through the leaves on their way to the house.
Mark spun and disappeared into the rear of the house. He cut through Pepper’s bedroom and into her parents’ room. Uncle James kept a twelve-gauge leaning in the corner. He grabbed the heavy humpback Browning and stepped into the entry hall just in time to see the men who’d been waiting in the car spread across the yard. One pitched an
empty beer can into a drift of leaves.
“I need to talk to Scottie a minute. We hear you have somebody living here with you. Is it her? Is it Scottie?”
“I’ve said too much.” Ida Belle latched the screen door. Her voice trembled. “Y’all need to go on now. You’ve been drinking.”
One of the three dressed in square-toed work boots, jeans, and a dirty jean jacket scuffed a cigarette out under one foot and lit another. His face hardened. “Lady, we just want some information.”
“Aunt Ida Belle said for you to go.”
Mark stopped beside the staircase with the twelve-gauge in his hands. Carrying it port arms, he angled his body and waited. In any other fourteen-year-old’s hands, the twelve-gauge would have looked too big, but he’d filled out in the last couple of months and the heavy shotgun didn’t look odd at all. He was surprised that the barrel wasn’t waving around, because despite his outward appearance, his nerves were jangling like a telephone.
Pockets raised both hands. “Hey, kid. Careful with that thing.”
At the sight of the shotgun in Mark’s hands, Ida Belle shifted to the side, giving Mark a clear view of the stranger on their porch. “My father-in-law is the constable. You better leave before he gets here.”
“Is that an Indian?” Pockets squinted through the screen and lowered his hands to the wooden doorframe. “You got an Indian in the house with your white daughter?”
“I saw her in the window when we walked up.” The chain-smoker who’d spoken unscrewed the cap on a nearly empty pint of whiskey and spoke around the cigarette in his lips. “But a long-haired Indian. That’s as bad as having a nigger in the house.”
Mark leveled the muzzle. “She said to get gone.”
Chain-smoker glanced sideways toward something none of those inside could see. He stiffened and held up both hands. “All right, all right. We’re going, but if I ever catch you out without that shotgun, it’ll be me and you, boy.”
Pockets also caught something in his peripheral vision. His eyes widened and he sidestepped down the plank steps. Their attention kept switching from Mark behind the screen to something else just out of sight on the road.
They took their time returning to the car. Pockets glanced over his shoulder and tried to build a little bravado that blew away in the wind. “These hicks don’t know nothing. Let’s go.”
Pepper couldn’t leave well enough alone. She joined her mother at the screen, frustrating Mark and getting between him and the two strangers. “Hey, dumb ass, I have your license number.”
“Big deal.” Pockets and Chain-smoker returned to the car after one more look at the oil road and slammed their doors. The car crunched slowly over the gravel drive and turned toward the store.
Ida Belle placed one hand over her heart, as if to steady it. “They’re gone, but I bet they won’t be the last. I wonder who the next fool will be.”
Pepper watched them drive away and angled her head against the screen to see what they’d been looking at. “Mama, come looky here.”
Curious, Ida Belle unlatched the screen and stepped out on the porch to see Miss Mable standing at the corner of the house, tucking a revolver back into her train case full of chicks. “My God. Miss Mable, get in this house where it’s warm.”
“They didn’t look like nice men and I told them so when they tried to pick me up in Arthur City.” Carrying the case in the crook of her arm, she allowed Ida Belle to hustle her inside. “The good Lord told me it’d be warm in here.”
Ida Belle shook her head. “Arthur City! You walked that far in this cold? I swear. You don’t carry that gun around everywhere you go, do you?”
“Why, I don’t know.” Miss Mable looked surprised. “Do I?”
Knees shaking in relief, Mark leaned the shotgun in the corner. “Aunt Ida Belle?”
She took a long, shuddering breath. “What hon?”
“You have any idea where Uncle James keeps the shells for that shotgun? That thing’s as empty as Pepper’s head.”
Miss Mable placed her case on the telephone table. “I’d like a teacake, please.” She pushed past them toward the kitchen.
Hearing the faint cheeping inside the case, Pepper rolled her eyes. “This place and these people are gonna drive me crazy.”
Chapter Sixty-six
Ned drove through the increasing snowfall for ten minutes before the man in the backseat moaned and held up a weak hand, as if the gesture would make his shoulder stop hurting. “I’m bleeding to death.”
Tom Bell’s .45 slug had entered the tip of the CIA assassin’s right shoulder, shattering it and tearing into his chest. His breathing was labored and he struggled to sit upright.
Ned squinted through the slapping windshield wipers with no particular destination in mind. They’d driven past the biggest graveyard he’d ever seen and finally saw a sign that said Arlington National Cemetery. Wet snow covered the ground.
His eyes flicked to the rearview mirror. The man’s pale face told him he didn’t have long. “We have a problem. I don’t know where we’re headed.”
“Anywhere the road goes.” Tom Bell’s expressionless gray eyes stayed on the wounded man. “We need to do this fast. You’re fading, buddy. I’m gonna ask you some questions and you better answer right quick.”
Following the traffic, Ned passed a massive statue also covered in snow and lit by high-intensity lights. He recognized the iconic posture of marines planting the American flag, and the famous memorial only made him feel worse.
“I’ll tell you anything you want. Get me to a hospital.”
“In time.” Tom Bell’s voice was cold as the falling snow. “After we get some answers.”
“Fine.”
“What’s your name?”
“Larry.”
“Larry, who are you with?”
The wounded man groaned. He rested his head on the back of the seat. “What difference does it make?”
“A lot to us. You’re with the Company, right?”
Larry swallowed and nodded.
“Why’d you try to kill us?”
“They’ll kill me if I tell.”
“Don’t matter. You’re dying as it is.”
Ned shivered at the Ranger’s emotionless voice. They passed over a bridge and the Jefferson Memorial. Few tourists braved the weather so the steps to the round classical revival structure were untracked. The marble and columns modeled on the Parthenon should have been inspiring, but the open-air structure at that moment was nothing more than a pole barn to him.
“Look buddy, I’m the one who shot you and I’m about to do it again if you don’t tell me what I want to know. Who told you to start something with us in that bar and why?”
Larry’s weak voice was wet. Blood dripped from his lips. “You know too much.”
“What were you supposed to do with our bodies?”
“Agent Matteo ordered us to bury them. He set up the operation.”
“Then what?”
“Louise was supposed to report that you were dead.”
“Who was Louise?”
“The woman at the bar. She’s…she was…an agent too.”
Ned’s eyes roamed from the mirror to the world beyond the wipers. His stomach rolled at what was going on in the backseat, but it was why they’d driven halfway across the country—to get answers.
The road drifted around a small lake. A sign pointed to the left. Tidal Basin. Ned glanced at the Washington Monument barely visible through the snow. The wipers packed slushy ice and snow to the bottom of the windshield.
“I’m getting weak, man. Get me to the hospital.”
“He’s taking us there. Now, who told you to kill us?”
“Mr. Gray. A guy that goes by the name of Mr. Gray.”
“Mr. Brown, and now Mr. Gray?”
Larry coughed an
d grinned past the blood in his teeth. “We…they…all use alternate names.”
“Then that won’t do us any good. How do we find Gray?”
“You can’t.”
“We will.
Larry’s shallow breathing became more labored, his voice thick and wet. “Hospital. Hurry.”
“I’m not seeing one.” Ned shifted his mind into neutral. For the second time that day he steered past the Roman architecture of the Lincoln Memorial. The earlier awe he’d felt about the monuments and buildings that housed the precious documents that were the foundation of a fragile framework of government was gone, because he knew the majesty of that two hundred years of trust and honor was on the brink of winking out. He glanced through the columns to see the sad, chiseled face of Abraham Lincoln defined by bright lights that were yellow in the falling weather.
Ned felt exactly the same.
Larry faded and Tom Bell nudged him awake. “Hey. You’re in bad shape. You need to tell us where your boss is headquartered.”
“It won’t do you any good.”
“We’ll decide that. Where is it?”
“Route 123 in Langley.”
“How’ll we know when we get there?”
“Cross into Virginia. It’ll be on your right. There’s a sign that says Bureau of Public Roads. That’s the Company.”
Ned nodded. They already suspected it, but hearing it from the agent was progress. They completed the circle around the Lincoln Memorial and headed back past the Tidal Basin.
“Fine, then.” Tom Bell shifted with his back against the door. “What’s Gray’s real name?”
“It won’t do you any good. Get me to the hospital.”
“Tell me now, then we’ll get there. You don’t have much longer.”
Larry coughed blood. “I don’t think I’m gonna make it.”
The light went out of his eyes and Ned saw they were back at the Jefferson Memorial at the same time Larry died.
“Dammit.” Tom Bell leaned back in his seat. “You were right, Larry, you were worse off than I thought.”
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