Gold Dust

by Reavis Z. Wortham

  If Hill called the Company when he got back to the motel and asked for himself, no one there would ever admit he’d existed.

  He plucked a stainless steel pick from one of the many pockets in his fishing vest. Angling his head, he turned toward the bank to get better light. The end of his pick, as sharp as a needle, caught the knot. He worked it into the tight loop.

  I got out just in time. I’m slowing down and things are starting to slip, like my eyes.

  The knot loosened and he put the pick away.

  Gold Dust is going to be what people remember me for at the Company. Not all the good I’ve done all these years all over the world, but for a mission that wasn’t my idea in the first place, headed by a bunch of eggheads who assured me the bacteria was safe.

  He didn’t like the looks of the leader. The knot had weakened it to the point that it might break with a big fish. He clipped the fly off with a hemostat.

  At least I put most of the onus on Brown and Brimley.

  He grinned around the pipe, remembering the body of Agent Larry Brimley was found in a car parked in the northeast side of D.C., the roughest section of the nation’s capital. It was a perfect setup. His death provided the backstory they needed to hang the failed Gold Dust operation on his shoulders. The in-house report listed his misdeeds, plans, and associates, who would also fall. It wasn’t the first time Joe Hill had manufactured an alibi.

  Mr. Brown on the other hand disappeared like smoke in the wind, along with his family. The Company was patient, though. Sooner or later Mr. Brown or his wife would contact relatives and those watching would backtrack to whatever dirt-water country they were hiding in and the Company machine would send in a team to extract their vengeance.

  The hemostat cut through his fly line and he clipped the device back onto a flap covering the uppermost pocket of his vest. One thing he’d miss, though, were the Company’s missions that impacted the advancement of worldwide democracy, such as that little LSD project in Iran. Who cared what happened to a bunch of sand spooks if the experiments would show how effective the new synthetic drug was at expanding a person’s mind? Maybe those guys over in Psych Ops could find a way to use their special subjects to read Russian minds.

  Mr. Hill shook his head at the advancements in psychological warfare. Someday a guy in an office somewhere could just close his eyes, take a dose of acid, and open them in a Soviet agent’s mind. Mind control! What a wonderful thing! Maybe they could get in deep enough to control an agent and turn him around to actually kill Leonid Brezhnev!

  Well, it didn’t matter here on such a clear, wonderful trout stream. He was free of worry and stress.

  With renewed enthusiasm, he finished tying a new bloodknot and was reaching for his fly box when he noticed two fishermen splashing in his direction, driving the fish down. Hill frowned. “Dammit!”

  He felt his blood pressure increase when he saw spinning gear in their hands.

  How does anyone not know that you don’t wade a creek coming from upstream?

  Chapter Eighty-six

  Collin County Deputy Jimmy Bright took a surprised criminal-turned-farmer named Ellis Bass into custody at the local post office as he picked up his mail. For the moment there were no plans to arrest his wife for harboring a fugitive. She was presumably checking folks out at the Save-U, and the kids were in school.

  At the same time, Cody and his people were headed for Ellis’ farmhouse. Anna rode in the front passenger seat. Big John and his shotgun took up most of the back. Sheriff Hawkins was waiting over the hill on the oil road that ran in front of Ellis’ house about half a mile away.

  Cody parked around a bend blocked by a thick stand of hackberry trees. Nerves on edge, he leaned one arm over the back of the bench seat. “I don’t know how the sheriff is going to handle this. When we get the go, I’ll pull up and, John, you go around back. I doubt Owen can move very fast if he’s shot up, but you be ready with that twelve-gauge just in case.”

  “He got away from me once before.” The big man wrinkled his forehead. “Ain’t gonna happen again.”

  Cody registered a Collin County deputy sheriff’s car that pulled up behind him. “Anna, this guy’s gonna shoot if he gets the chance.”

  She nodded. “I expect it to happen.”

  He took in her yellowing bruises. “I just don’t want any of us to get hurt….”

  His radio squawked with Sheriff Hawkins’ voice. “Move in!”

  “Here we go.” Cody rounded the bend. The overanxious, big-eared deputy following their cruiser gunned his engine, as if riding Cody’s back bumper would spark him into racing up to the house. The sheriff’s car was still a hundred yards away when Cody slowed to turn in the dirt drive. When the distance suddenly closed, the deputy showered down on the brakes and nearly rear-ended them.

  “What’s with these bozos?” Anna glanced into the side mirror, seeing the deputy throw up his hands in frustration.

  “I believe that jugheaded little feller back there’s excited. Must be kinda peaceful around here most of the time.” John grinned from ear to ear. “They wouldn’t know what to do in our part of the country.”

  Cody’s eyes flicked from the rearview mirror back through to the house coming up on the right. Lights flashing, Sheriff Hawkins swung into the gravel drive and punched it enough to shoot around Cody. He cut across the yard and slammed the brakes, almost sliding into the front porch.

  “Good Lord.” Cody’s comment was under his breath, a quiet statement on a suddenly escalating situation. “I’m surprised that fool didn’t hit his siren.”

  A screeching yip yip from the deputy sheriff’s car behind them cut off his words as the driver hit the switch a couple of times.

  The cat was out of the bag.

  “Hang on!” Cody punched the accelerator, steered behind the house, and hit the brakes. “Change in plans.”

  “I figgered.” Before the car stopped, John piled out of the back with the shotgun to his shoulder in a move that looked practiced.

  Cody was out in a flash with Anna at his side, pistol in her fist. Cody didn’t remember drawing his 1911 and was surprised to see it in his hand.

  Two hard reports, as sharp as a plank slapping concrete, came from inside.

  “Door, John!”

  Big John vaulted up on the small covered porch and planted his size seventeen shoe beside the flimsy lock. The entire frame splintered and he ducked to the side to get out of the line of potential fire.

  A wall ran the length of the rectangular house, dividing it in half. Cody followed his .45 into a dingy but clean kitchen. Seeing no resistance, John pushed past the sheriff and into the living room on the right side. Cody glanced to his left to find a door leading into a bathroom off the kitchen. Another shot came from somewhere in the house.

  Anna brought up the rear. From the opposite side of the dividing wall, three shots in rapid succession filled the air, hammering their ears. She dropped to one knee and with her shoulder pressed against a cabinet door, aimed into the bathroom beside them. A string of shots sounding like firecrackers told them the action was somewhere deeper in the house.

  Chapter Eighty-seven

  Rod and reel in his left hand, Ned Parker’s footsteps crunched on the gravel streambank. The narrow creek meandered down a corridor of hardwoods and grasses, reminding him of what the smaller spring-fed creeks in northeast Texas looked like when he was a kid. Shimmering, gurgling water flowed under bare limbs overhanging the surface.

  “I swear, the only clear water these days is the Blue River up in Oklahoma. I’d give anything to swap ten of them muddy creeks of ours for just one like this.”

  “This river’s a sight, all right.” Tom Bell carried a new Zebco thirty-three spinning rod. Both men wore chest-waders under their jackets. “I do love live water, though I don’t see how fly-fishermen keep from tangling up in all these limbs.”
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  A flock of starlings wheeled overhead, wind whistling over their feathers. They turned as one like a school of fish and settled into a bare oak overlooking the streambed.

  Ned also carried a new fishing rod. He shivered and pulled the collar of his new jacket up around his neck. “I’druther use a cane pole in here.”

  “Let’s get us a couple of poles and go fishing when we get back home. Catch us a mess of crappie.” Tom rested the rod on his shoulder and pointed downstream. “Look. If your friend Mr. Brown was telling the truth, there stands who we’re looking for.”

  The fisherman standing knee-deep in the narrow stream was as red as a beet. He shouted at them long before they were within comfortable talking distance. “Don’t you two know anything about fishing!!!???”

  Ned and Tom Bell waded closer. Sticking his fishing rod under his arm, Ned mimicked Tom Bell and tucked both hands inside the loose bib of his waders. It was a move modeled by farmers for decades as they rested in conversation. “I’ve been fishing all my life. What do you mean?”

  “Those are spinning rods. This is fly water! Catch-and-release fly water. You’ve driven all the fish down. They won’t rise again for hours.”

  Ned glanced down to examine the rod under his arm as if it had suddenly appeared there out of thin air. “Well then.”

  He dropped it into the river.

  The fisherman’s eyes widened. “Are you crazy?”

  “Well, you just said that wasn’t the right rig.”

  The stranger held his bamboo rod at port arms like a rifle. “Have you lost your damn mind?”

  “That’ll give you time to visit with us, then. That’s why we’re here, to talk to you if you’re Mr. Gray.”

  The man’s eyes narrowed, calculating. “Who?”

  “We’re the law and you match the description of the man we’re looking for. You’re under arrest, Mr. Gray, for murder.”

  “How…for what? Show me a badge.”

  Tom Bell opened his fishing jacket to reveal the badge pinned high on his shirt. “This work?”

  The fisherman squinted and ripped his glasses off. “What’s that?”

  “A Ranger badge. Texas Ranger. I’m here to arrest you for crimes against the people of Lamar County, Texas.”

  The fisherman’s face paled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes you do.” Ned splashed a step forward. Water gurgled around his legs, adding volume to the chuckling stream. The starlings chirped, a back chorus to the events below. “I’m a constable in Lamar County. It was my friends you killed with that…that Gold Dust you had sprayed. My grandboy almost died.” His voice broke. His jaw muscles worked as he gathered himself and cleared his throat. “I’m taking you back to Texas to stand trial.”

  The fisherman held out his hand. “Show me a duly signed warrant for my arrest.”

  Ned fell silent.

  “You don’t have a warrant, do you, buddy boy? No judge in the world would issue an out-of-state warrant to anyone other than a U.S. Marshall.”

  Tom Bell gave a semi shrug. “You know a lot about the law, sir.”

  “A lot more than you know. Identify yourselves.”

  “I’m Tom Bell, Texas Ranger. This is Constable Ned Parker, from Texas.”

  The fisherman visibly flinched. “Parker.”

  “That’s what he said. I believe we’ve talked on the phone in the past.”

  “Well, if you two really are who you say, you’re completely mistaken about my identity.”

  “Could be. So who do you say you are?”

  “Joe Hill.”

  “You have ID?

  “Sure. Right here.” He reached into the inside pocket of his vest with a nervous hand and removed a thin wallet. He paused, staring down the bore of Ned’s revolver. “Easy with that thing.”

  “You better hand me that billfold real slow, and the name in it better be…what did you say?”

  “Hill.”

  “Give it here.”

  The fisherman extended his arm and took a step closer to the constable. The starlings took wing with the soft sound of padded applause as if anticipating what was about to happen.

  Ned squinted, looking for the truth in the fisherman’s eyes. “You’re pretty nervous for an innocent man.”

  “I’m scared of course. You’re threatening to shoot me, but I’m not your Mr. Gray.”

  Hill’s pronunciation of the word “Gray” sent Ned’s mind reeling with Miss Becky’s description of Top’s vision.

  A gray rat in an all-white operating room.

  A gray rat escaping up a hill, white marble columns…like the ones on the monuments in Washington.

  Mr. Gray really is Joe Hill!

  Ned’s eyes widened and that’s all it took for Joe Hill to recognize that he’d made a mistake. Ned saw the muzzle of a double-barreled derringer concealed in the wallet. Hill curled his finger through a hole in the leather and fired. The .22 magnum round cracked past Ned’s cheek.

  Feeling the shock wave of the passing bullet, Ned stumbled to the side, fighting the pull of the current. Gravel shifted under his feet. Splashing down on one knee, he pulled the trigger on his cocked revolver. The .38 round punched Joe Hill AKA Mr. Gray on the left side of his chest-waders.

  Hill grunted as the slug plowed through his lung. He fired the Hi-Standard derringer’s second barrel. The hollow-point slug ricocheted off the water and whined away.

  Ned shot again, steadier this time, and missed, clean as a whistle.

  Two heavier reports from Tom Bell’s 1911 echoed down the creek valley. The first round struck Hill’s waders within an inch of Ned’s first shot, and the second caught the falling man under the chin.

  The CIA agent toppled backward, already in Hell before he splashed into the gin-clear water.

  “I hope you can still hear me.” Trembling with rage, Ned struggled back to his feet and spoke to the partially submerged body. “You hurt my grandkids, you sonofabitch.”

  Tom Bell swiveled to check their surroundings. “Serves him right.” He slid the Colt back under his waders. “Ned.”

  The old constable watched the current push at the body. Tendrils of blood stained the water. “What?”

  “He drew on us. He would have killed one of us if you hadn’t shot.”

  Ned shivered as if a possum had run over his grave. “He was so close, it’s a wonder he missed with both of them shots.” He swallowed. “You don’t have to make me feel better about this. I’d-a shot him anyway, once I was sure who he was.”

  Tom Bell absently smoothed his mustache, pondering the statement. “I know it. I was gonna do it even if you didn’t.”

  “He’s the one we’ve been looking for.”

  “He is, that. But you know, this won’t change much. This man’s dead, but you’ve only broken off a fang, not taken the snake’s head.”

  “I know that, too. I did what I intended. I’ve settled with the sonofabitch who hurt my family.”

  “And the rest of them back in Virginia?”

  “I can’t do any more than what we’ve done. It’s just too big.”

  The current pushed at the limp body, but the gravel bottom held him in place. Tom Bell dipped his hand in the water and pulled up Hill’s wallet and empty derringer. He slipped it into his shirt pocket before turning his serious gaze back to Ned. “I need to know, to satisfy the Devil. How were you sure he’s the right one? I still didn’t know until he tried to shoot you.”

  “Top had a vision about a gray rat running up a hill. He told Miss Becky. She told me when I called the house last night. I put it together and saw it in his eyes at the same time he shot. It’s him, all right.” Ned cleared his throat and opened the long blade on his pocketknife. He swallowed and knelt beside the Gray’s body. “I’ve done my do. Let’s finish this and
go home.”

  “I’d like that just fine.”

  Chapter Eighty-eight

  The phone rang on Sheriff Steve Brigman’s desk. Reading a newspaper article on still another firefight in Vietnam, he lifted the receiver. “Sheriff’s office.”

  “This the sheriff?”

  “Said it was.” The sheriff of Stone County straightened as if proud of the title.

  “I’d like to report a dead body in Crane Creek.”

  Brigman put down the paper and gave the caller his full attention. “Who is this? Where?”

  “The best I can tell you is that he’s a-layin’ ’bout a mile and a half south of the Old Wire Road near that big turnout where people pull in and park to fish. You know where that is?”

  “I do. Who is he and how…?”

  “He’s been shot dead.”

  “Who’s been shot by who?”

  “By me, and he ain’t got no identification. Good luck figuring out his name, but I wouldn’t worry. He’s a murderer that I settled with. And by the way, I’d just as well tell you, there ain’t no bullets in ’im. I done dug ’em out, what didn’t go plumb through. Now, I’m calling from a pay phone, and I’ve done told you all I’m gonna say.”

  The caller hung up and Brigman ran a hand though his short blond hair thinking this one was going to be difficult in more ways than one.

  Chapter Eighty-nine

  Propped on feather pillows facing the window, Owen rested with Ellis’ freshly sawed-off semi-automatic Remington 1100 shotgun lying alongside his leg. The head of the bed was against the long wall that divided the rectangular house lengthwise. A door on his left led to the bathroom that also accessed the kitchen. One on the right opened into Ellis’ bedroom at the front of the house just off the living room.