The Blight Way

by McManus, Patrick F.

  “You’re the best darn secretary I’ve ever had.”

  Tears welled up in Daisy’s eyes.

  “Thanks, boss.”

  People lead hard lives. If there was one thing Tully had learned in his ten years as sheriff, it was that.

  Chapter 43

  On his way home that evening, he stopped by Jacob’s Grocery and picked up a half pound of peppered bacon for the grouse. In the produce department he selected half a dozen salad ingredients. When he got home he salted the two grouse and put them in the oven to bake, with a couple slices of bacon pinned to each with a toothpick. You couldn’t buy a meal like this in New York City for a thousand dollars a plate, he was willing to bet.

  By four thirty he was getting tired. He had begun to think that inviting Susan out for dinner hadn’t been such a great idea. But if not now, when? Perhaps never. He drove back into town and picked her up at her office.

  “I am beat!” she said. “If you weren’t such an entertaining gentleman, I’d call off this date right now.”

  “After a couple of martinis, I’m even more of an entertaining gentleman,” Tully said. “The dinner I got cooking will revive you, guaranteed. Roast grouse on a bed of wild rice. Cost you a thousand dollars a plate in New York City.”

  “I have to admit it sounds wonderful. How about the martinis? And the foot massage?”

  “Oh, they’re ready, too.”

  Tully awoke at six o’clock Monday morning. He was fully dressed and lying on his couch. Two empty martini glasses sat on the coffee table, a plastic toothpick in each. The remains of the grouse dinner still sat on the table. Susan snored loudly in the big fat easy chair. She was covered to her chin with an afghan throw. She too was fully clothed, Tully saw, except possibly for her feet. Tully could remember the foot massage but not covering her with the afghan. He doubted he’d ever forget that foot massage.

  He walked over and shook Susan. Her eyes popped open. She looked around, then up at Tully.

  “Good Lord!” she said.

  “Must have been a pretty wild date,” Tully said. “Wish I could remember it.”

  “Me, too,” she said.

  She stretched and yawned. “You know something, Bo?”

  “What’s that?”

  “This was the best sleep I’ve had in years. No offense.”

  “None taken. Uh-oh, I’ve got to go. I’ve got a Jeep Wrangler parked in the garage, Susan. The keys are on the nail by the sink. You can drive it to the office when you’re ready. Heck, use it as long as you want. I’ll be in touch, okay?”

  “Okay. It seems so early. And you’re up and dressed already.”

  “Oh, I never take my clothes off at night. Just have to put them back on again in the morning.”

  “Very efficient,” she said.

  Chapter 44

  When he got to the office, Jan Whittle was sitting in his chair staring out the window at Lake Blight. Daisy had been right, the view of the lake and mountains was spectacular. Maybe he wouldn’t have the window painted after all. A shot from a boat bobbing around on the water would be awfully difficult.

  “Can you think of anyone who would want to shoot me, Jan?” he said.

  “No. Except maybe a grade-school principal who can’t get you up in the mountains to look for Glen Cliff.”

  “It so happens that is exactly what I am doing today. I figured the snow would bring him down, but it hasn’t.”

  “You better hope he isn’t dead.”

  Tully laughed. “I was hoping just the opposite of that. Every year that kid runs off somewhere, the last two, somewhere up in the mountains. If I had my way, I’d leave him up there.”

  “Fortunately, you don’t have your way.”

  Tully pulled a pair of insulated hunting boots and wool socks out of the closet. He sat down in a chair and began putting them on. Jan sat in his chair at his desk and watched him. He glanced nervously at her. “What?”

  “Nothing. I was just remembering you when we were in grade school together.”

  “You remember sixth grade?” Tully said, lacing up one of the boots.

  “Of course.”

  “Do you remember that you were my girlfriend that year?”

  “I thought I might be, but we never even talked.”

  “Yeah,” Tully said, “that’s how it was done back then. Probably a pretty good idea for extending a relationship. How are you and old Darrel getting along, by the way?”

  “Fine.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Do you remember that you gave me a present at Christmas when we were in sixth grade?”

  “Yeah, I remember, but it was my mother’s fault. I asked her what I should give a girl for a present, and she said, ‘You can’t go wrong with some nice soap.’”

  “I see. Well, I guess a bar of Lifebuoy is pretty nice soap. I think it was the one back then that had the commercial claiming it got rid of B.O., body odor.”

  “Sorry about that. I always thought you were the best-smelling kid in class, not that that meant a whole lot in our sixth grade.”

  “You know what, Bo? I still have that bar of soap.”

  He glanced up. He could swear she had tears in her eyes. He seemed to be having that effect on women these days.

  “Tell you what, Jan. Some night when Darrel plans to watch his favorite TV shows, maybe you and I could have dinner at Crabbs and talk over old times.”

  “The sheriff and the grade-school principal having dinner together at Crabbs? I think people would gossip shamefully. Thursday is his favorite TV night, though.”

  Tully smiled. “I’ll give you a call.”

  “Okay, but please find the Cliff boy first.”

  Oh yeah, he thought. The Cliff boy.

  Tully drove the Explorer up into the Hoodoo Mountains until he came to snow. Then he got out and chained up all four tires. He drove in two-wheel drive until the vehicle began to fishtail on the road. Then he shifted into four-wheel drive, and finally stopped when the Explorer started plowing snow with its radiator.

  A dark cloud had risen over the Hoodoos and Tully could tell more snow was on the way. He hoped the Cliff boy would be where he expected him to be. He hauled his army-surplus snowshoes out of the SUV. Then he pulled his day pack out and put it on. A pair of bear-paw snowshoes were strapped to the pack. Carrying his other snowshoes, he waded up the road until the snow reached his knees. He strapped on the snowshoes and began the peculiar hip-swinging waddle he used with them. Two hours of this would make him think his crotch was on fire, but he hoped to find the kid before then. He reached the old mining camp sooner than he had expected and was relieved to see smoke coming from the chimney of one of the cabins. The trick now would be to keep the Cliff kid from shooting him. Or him from shooting the Cliff kid. When he got to the cabin, he took off the snowshoes and kicked open the door.

  Glen Cliff was sitting on a bunk reading a book by light from a Coleman lantern. He stared at Tully, who was glancing about the room trying to locate the kid’s rifle. It was leaning in a corner near the door.

  “About time you showed up,” Glen said.

  Tully picked up the rifle, slipped the bolt out of it and put the bolt in his parka pocket. “I can tell you one thing, Glen, this is the last time I come up here looking for you. From now on, you die up here, that’s fine with me.”

  “I was about ready to come down. The snow was getting too deep to move around much. I don’t think even school is as boring as sitting in this cabin. I’ll give school a try and see if it’s as boring as I think.”

  “You better try it until you’re out of high school.”

  Paperback books were scattered everywhere. One of them had a Blight County Library stamp on the back of it. Tully turned it over with the toe of his boot: A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. “You read all these?”

  “Yeah. Some of them twice.”

  “Nothing like boredom, I guess, to make a young man further his education. You ever think about girls, Glen?
In my day, they were the main reason I went to school.”

  “Girls are interesting, all right, but I wouldn’t know the first thing about getting a girlfriend.”

  “All you have to do is pick out one and start talking to her. Maybe give her a gift.”

  “A gift? What kind of gift?”

  “Soap is nice. You can’t go wrong with soap.”

  “Soap!”

  “Yeah, soap. You might want to avoid Lifebuoy, though.”

  Glen had spent the summer building up his cache of food and books in the old mine cabin. He and Tully left the books but loaded what was left of the tins of food into two cardboard boxes. They each carried a box as they left the cabin. Tully held his box on his shoulder with one hand and carried the rifle in his other hand. Glen carried the other box and an ax. It occurred to Tully that it might be a good idea to trade the boltless rifle for the ax, but Glen seemed satisfied to be leaving the mountains. The boy put on the bear paws and walked ahead, placing his smaller snowshoes in the tracks Tully had made coming in. While they were still on the crest of the ridge, he stopped and pointed off to the north.

  “What’s going on up there?”

  “Where’s there?” Tully said through his puffing and wheezing. He looked off in the direction the kid was pointing.

  “Up there. It looks like the Last Hope Canyon. Every night I see vehicle lights coming around over the mountains and then disappearing down the canyon.”

  Tully stopped in mid-wheeze. “What kind of vehicles?”

  “I don’t know. It’s a long way off. All I can see are the lights.”

  “What night was this?”

  “Every night.”

  Tully dropped the boy off at the Cliff house. “Your father’s not going to beat you or anything, is he?”

  Glen laughed. “Not a chance. My mom may take a swipe at me, though. I think she worries.”

  “Somebody needs to, I suppose.”

  “Can I keep the bear paws?”

  “I guess. Every kid needs a pair of snowshoes. By the way, before you go to school and tell Mrs. Whittle what a fine job I did rescuing you from a life-and-death situation, you might buy some Lifebuoy. And use it on yourself!”

  Chapter 45

  Pap was rocking in his chair on his porch and smoking one of his handmades. He got up a little stiffly, grabbed his pack with one hand, his pump shotgun with the other, and slowly made his way out to the Explorer. Tully got out and walked around to open the rear door for him.

  “You’re walking kind of funny this morning,” Pap said.

  “You should talk,” Tully said. “I at least have an excuse. I went up in the mountains yesterday and got the Cliff kid. On snowshoes.”

  “Snowshoes?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Snowshoes always make a man walk funny for a couple of days, like he’s straddling a barrel.”

  “Yeah, a barrel with a fire inside it.”

  Tully stuffed the old man’s gear in the back and shut the door. They both returned to the front of the vehicle and got in. Pap, as always, fussed with the seat belt. Tully leaned over and fastened it for him.

  “You have Susan out for dinner?”

  “Yeah. She spent the night.”

  Pap looked at him, then stared sadly out the wind-shield. “Oh to be seventy again,” he said.

  “Don’t feel too sorry for yourself. Susan slept in my easy chair. I conked out on the couch.”

  “You think that makes me feel better,” Pap said. Then he laughed. “I guess maybe it does.”

  They drove north toward Famine. The sun was out and there was a brisk wind, and the cottonwoods along the river were growing ever more bare, the last of the Cadmium Yellow Light leaves trailing out from them. Tully did not much care for cottonwoods. More than one person had been killed on a hot summer day by their huge dead limbs dropping soundlessly from high above. Then there were the sticky, bloody little buds that coated the feet of pets and their humans to be tracked into the carpets of houses. He did enjoy the smell of cottonwoods, in the fall, with their wet leaves on the ground.

  Pap appeared to doze off as they roared through the morning sunshine. Tully was relieved when the old man roused himself and dug the makings of a cigarette out of his jacket pocket.

  “So this thing is going down tonight?” he said.

  “That’s my plan, such as it is,” said Tully. “I had Dave out doing some work.”

  “Dave the Indian?”

  Tully laughed. “Yeah, Dave the Indian. He is a terrific tracker.”

  “He is that,” Pap agreed.

  “So if he found what I expected him to find, we go tonight, about midnight.”

  “Be careful you don’t tell nobody about what you expected him to find,” Pap grumbled.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t.”

  As they approached the Littlefield ranch, Tully slowed down.

  “We stopping here again?” Pap said. “I think you’ve got a thing for one of these ladies. Maybe both of them. If it’s that Cindy Littlefield, though, it’ll be a good lesson for old Vern.”

  “Cindy’s pretty darn nice, all right, but it’s the other one I got my eye on.”

  Tully pulled up in front of the Littlefield house, walked up to the door and rang the bell.

  Cindy answered it. “Sheriff! Why, this is a surprise. Vern’s still not back and I haven’t heard from him.”

  “It’s not Vern I’m here to see. It’s your new cook.”

  “Dana? For heaven’s sake, why?”

  “I need to see her for a second.”

  Dana walked into the living room. She seemed surprised to see Tully at the door. “Sheriff Tully! What brings you back so soon?”

  “I need to talk to you for just a moment.”

  Dana walked over and stood next to Cindy. “What is it?”

  “Would you hold your wrists out like this?” Tully showed her how to hold her wrists.

  “I guess so. You want me to hold them like this?”

  “Perfect.” Tully took a pair of handcuffs from the back of his belt and snapped them on her wrists.

  Both Cindy and Dana stared down at the cuffs.

  Dana blurted out a four-letter obscenity.

  “What is this?” Cindy said. “Are you arresting her?”

  “Yes, I am. Now, Cindy, if you would hold your wrists just exactly as Dana was so nice to do.”

  Cindy put both of her wrists behind her back.

  “What are you arresting me for?”

  “Harboring a fugitive from justice,” Tully said.

  “A fugitive from justice?”

  Tully nodded at Dana. Cindy’s mouth gaped open.

  Dana asked how Tully had reached that conclusion, throwing in several very serious obscenities in the process.

  “Your fingerprints on the Danielle Steel,” he said. “We folks here in Blight County are generally pretty slow, but we do have a fairly sophisticated fingerprint-identification system.”

  Tully told Cindy the ride to jail would be a lot more comfortable if her hands were cuffed in front of her. She reluctantly held her wrists out and Tully snapped the cuffs on. He pulled both women through the door and took them out to the Explorer. He inserted them into the back seat and fastened a seat belt around each of them.

  Pap had turned in his seat to study the prisoners.

  “Howdy, ladies,” he said. “My, this is quite a surprise. Bo seems to have developed a more direct approach with women than I ever did.”

  Both women told him what they thought of his observation.

  “My, such language! You know, Bo,” Pap said, “I can remember a time when even bad girls didn’t talk that way. I think I preferred it.”

  “Me, too,” said Tully. “But these may be bad-bad girls.”

  “Oh? In that case, I guess it might be all right.”

  “You all wait here a minute while I lock up the house,” Tully said.

  Once inside, he walked around until he found the den. As h
e expected, Vern Littlefield’s gun case was there. All the slots were full. Tully squatted down so that he could read the calibers. The Remington .270 was there. It was possible, of course, that Vern had another .270 for elk, but Tully thought that extremely unlikely. And just as unlikely was any call from Vern on his cell phone, or any expectation that Vern would ever be coming home from his elk hunt. He looked around for Oscar the ferret, but the animal was apparently hiding. There being little chance the ferret had a criminal past, Tully took a carton of milk out of the refrigerator and poured some in a bowl. He put the bowl in the sink. He took a package of German sausages out of the refrigerator and dumped them into the sink alongside the bowl of milk. Next to the bowl of milk, he put a pan of water. He had no idea what pet ferrets ate, but figured he couldn’t go too wrong with German sausages and milk. After taking care of Oscar, he walked into a bathroom that seemed to be part of Vern Littlefield’s domain. There was a hairbrush on the counter containing several hairs. He spread a hand towel out on the counter and, using part of the towel to cover his hand, he picked up the brush and wrapped it in the towel, making a note to himself to obtain a warrant for search of the Littlefield residence for a hairbrush and a .270 rifle.

  The little town of Famine seemed even quieter than usual as they drove down the main street. Tully parked alongside Ed’s gas station.

  “I have to run in here for a few minutes,” Tully said to Pap. “Can you keep an eye on our prisoners and make sure they don’t escape?”

  “My pleasure,” said Pap.

  This was followed by an outburst of imaginative obscenities from the back seat.

  “There’s one I haven’t heard in a while,” Pap said. He took out the makings and started work on one of his hand-rolleds. This brought more obscenities from the back seat.

  Tully walked into the station, plopped down in one of the chairs and put his feet up on another one. The girl at the counter smiled at him, and he smiled back. He picked up the day’s copy of the Lewiston Morning Tribune and was perusing it when Ed came in from waiting on a customer.

  “How’s it going, Bo?”

  “Pretty fair, considering.” He didn’t look up from the story he was reading. “Anything happening in Famine, Ed?”