by Lee Child
"Welcome to hell," she said.
The Red House itself was the main building in a compound of four impressive structures. It had a wide planked porch with wooden columns and a swinging seat hung from chains, and beyond it eighty yards farther on was a motor barn, but she couldn't drive down to it because a police cruiser was parked at an angle on the track, completely blocking her way. It was an old-model Chevy Caprice, painted black and white, with ECHO COUNTY SHERIFF on the door, where it had said something else before. Bought by the county secondhand, Reacher thought, maybe from Dallas or Houston, repainted and refurbished for easy duty out here in the sticks. It was empty and the driver's door was standing open. The light bar on the roof was flashing red and blue, whipping colors horizontally over the porch and the whole front of the house.
"What's this about?" Carmen said.
Then her hand went up to her mouth.
"God, he can't be home already," she said. "Please, no."
"Cops wouldn't bring him home," Reacher said. "They don't run a limo service."
Ellie was waking up behind them. No more hum from the engine, no more rocking from the springs. She struggled upright and gazed out, eyes wide.
"What's that?" she said.
"It's the sheriff," Carmen said.
"Why's he here?" Ellie asked.
"I don't know."
"Why are the lights flashing?"
"I don't know."
"Did somebody call 911? Maybe there's been a burglar. Maybe he wore a mask and stole something."
She crawled through and knelt on the padded armrest between the front seats. Reacher caught the school smell again and saw delighted curiosity in her face. Then he saw it change to extreme panic.
"Maybe he stole a horse," she said. "Maybe my pony, Mommy."
She scrambled across Carmen's lap and scrabbled at the door handle. Jumped out of the car and ran across the yard, as fast as her legs would carry her, her arms held stiff by her sides and her ponytail bouncing behind her.
"I don't think anybody stole a horse," Carmen said. "I think Sloop's come home."
"With the lights flashing?" Reacher said.
She undipped her seat belt and swiveled sideways and placed her feet on the dirt of the yard. Stood up and stared toward the house, with her hands on the top of the door frame, like the door was shielding her from something. Reacher did the same, on his side. The fierce heat wrapped around him. He could hear bursts of radio chatter coming from the sheriff's car.
"Maybe they're looking for you," he said. "You've been away overnight. Maybe they reported you missing."
Across the Cadillac's roof, she shook her head. "Ellie was here, and as long as they know where she is, they don't care where I am."
She stood still for a moment longer, and then she took a sideways step and eased the door shut behind her. Reacher did the same. Twenty feet away, the house door opened and a uniformed man stepped out onto the porch. The sheriff, obviously. He was about sixty and overweight, with dark tanned skin and thin gray hair plastered to his head. He was walking half-backward, taking his leave of the gloom inside. He had black pants and a white uniform shirt with epaulettes and embroidered patches on the shoulders. A wide gun belt with a wooden-handled revolver secured into a holster with a leather strap. The door closed behind him and he turned toward his cruiser and stopped short when he saw Carmen. Touched his forefinger to his brow in a lazy imitation of a salute. "Mrs. Greer," he said, like he was suggesting something was her fault.
"What happened?" she asked.
"Folks inside will tell you," the sheriff said. "Too damn hot for me to be repeating everything twice." Then his gaze skipped the roof of the Cadillac and settled on Reacher. "And who are you?" he asked. Reacher said nothing. "Who are you?" the guy said again.
"I'll tell the folks inside," Reacher replied. "Too damn hot for me to be repeating everything twice."
The guy gave him a long calm look, and finished with a slow nod of his head, like he'd seen it all before. He dumped himself inside his secondhand cruiser and fired it up and backed out to the road. Reacher let its dust settle on his shoes and watched Carmen drive the Cadillac down the track to the motor barn. It was a long low farm shed with no front wall, and it was painted red, like everything else. There were two pick-ups and a Jeep Cherokee in it. One of the pick-ups was recent and the other was sitting on flat tires and looked like it hadn't been moved in a decade. Beyond the building a narrow dirt track looped off into the infinite desert distance. Carmen eased the Cadillac in next to the Jeep and walked back out into the sun. She looked small and out of place in the yard, like an orchid in a trash pile.
"So where's the bunkhouse?" he asked.
"Stay with me," she said. "You need to meet them anyway. You need to get hired. You can't just show up in the bunkhouse."
"O.K.," he said.
She led him slowly to the bottom of the porch steps. She took them cautiously, one at a time. She arrived in front of the door and knocked.
"You have to knock?" Reacher asked.
She nodded.
"They never gave me a key," she said.
They waited, with Reacher a step behind her, appropriate for the hired help. He could hear footsteps inside. Then the door swung open. A guy was standing there, holding the inside handle. He looked to be in his middle twenties. He had a big square face, with the skin blotched red and white. He was bulky with frat-boy muscle turning to fat. He was wearing denim jeans and a dirty white T-shirt with the sleeves rolled tight over what was left of his biceps. He smelled of sweat and beer. He was wearing a red baseball cap backward on his head. A semicircle of forehead showed above the plastic strap. At the back, a shock of hair spilled out under the peak, exactly the same color and texture as Ellie's. "It's you," he said, glancing at Carmen, glancing away.
"Bobby," she said.
Then his glance settled on Reacher. "Who's your friend?"
"His name is Reacher. He's looking for work."
The guy paused.
"Well, come on in, I guess," he said. "Both of you. And close the door. It's hot."
He turned back into the gloom and Reacher saw the letter Ton the ball cap. Texas Rangers, he thought. Good ball club, but not good enough. Carmen followed the guy three steps behind, entering her home of nearly seven years like an invited guest. Reacher stayed close to her shoulder.
"Sloop's brother," she whispered to him.
He nodded. The hallway was dark inside. He could see the red paint continued everywhere, over the wooden walls, the floors, the ceilings. Most places it was worn thin or worn away completely, just leaving traces of pigment behind like a stain. There was an ancient air conditioner running somewhere in the house, forcing the temperature down maybe a couple of degrees. It ran slowly, with a patient drone and rattle. It sounded peaceful, like the slow tick of a clock. The hallway was the size of a motel suite, filled with expensive stuff, but it was all old, like they'd run out of money decades ago. Or else they'd always had so much that the thrill of spending it had worn off a generation ago. There was a huge mirror on one wall, with the ornate frame painted red. Opposite to it was a rack filled with six bolt-action hunting rifles. The mirror reflected the rack and made the hallway seem full of guns.
"What did the sheriff want?" Carmen called.
"Come inside," Bobby called back.
We are inside, Reacher thought. But then he saw he meant.
"Come into the parlor."
It was a big red room at the back of the house. It had been remodeled. It must have been a kitchen once. It opened out through the original wall of the house to a replacement kitchen easily fifty years old. The parlor had the same worn paint everywhere, including all over the furniture. There was a big farmhouse table and eight wheelback chairs, all made out of pine, all painted red, all worn back to shiny wood where human contact had been made.
One of the chairs was occupied by a woman. She looked to be somewhere in her middle fifties. She was the sort of person who st
ill dresses the same way she always did despite her advancing age. She was wearing tight jeans with a belt and a blouse with a Western fringe. She had a young woman's hairstyle, colored a bright shade of orange and teased up off her scalp above a thin face. She looked like a twenty-year-old prematurely aged by some rare medical condition. Or by a shock. Maybe the sheriff had sat her down and given her some awkward news. She looked preoccupied and a little confused. But she showed a measure of vitality, too. A measure of authority. There was still vigor there. She looked like the part of Texas she owned, rangy and powerful, but temporarily laid low, with most of her good days behind her.
"What did the sheriff want?" Carmen asked again.
"Something happened," the woman said, and her tone meant it wasn't something good. Reacher saw a flicker of hope behind Carmen's eyes. Then the room went quiet and the woman turned to look in his direction.
"His name is Reacher," Carmen said. "He's looking for work."
"Where's he from?"
Her voice was like rawhide. I'm the boss here, it said.
"I found him on the road," Carmen answered.
"What can he do?"
"He's worked with horses before. He can do blacksmithing."
Reacher looked out of the window while she lied about his skills. He had never been closer to a horse than walking past the ceremonial stables on the older army bases that still had them. He knew in principle that a blacksmith made horseshoes, which were iron things horses had nailed to their feet. Or their hoofs. Hooves? He knew there was a charcoal brazier involved, and a bellows, and a great deal of rhythmic hammering. An anvil was required, and a trough of water. But he had never actually touched a horseshoe. He had seen them occasionally, nailed up over doors as a superstition. He knew some cultures nailed them upward, and some downward, all to achieve the same good luck. But that was all he knew about them.
"We'll talk about him later," the woman said. "Other things to talk about first."
Then she remembered her manners and sketched a wave across the table.
"I'm Rusty Greer," she said.
"Like the ballplayer?" Reacher asked.
"I was Rusty Greer before he was born," the woman said. Then she pointed at Bobby. "You already met my boy Robert Greer. Welcome to the Red House Ranch, Mr. Reacher. Maybe we can find you work. If you're willing and honest."
"What did the sheriff want?" Carmen asked for the third time.
Rusty Greer turned and looked straight at her.
"Sloop's lawyer's gone missing," she said.
"What?"
"He was on his way to the federal jail to see Sloop. He never got there. State police found his car abandoned on the road, south of Abilene. Just sitting there empty, miles from anywhere, keys still in it. Situation doesn't look good."
"Al Eugene?"
"How many lawyers you think Sloop had?"
Her tone added: you idiot. The room went totally silent and Carmen went pale and her hand jumped to her mouth, fingers rigid and extended, covering her lips.
"Maybe the car broke down," she said.
"Cops tried it," Rusty said. "It worked just fine."
"So where is he?"
"He's gone missing. I just told you that."
"Have they looked for him?"
"Of course they have. But they can't find him."
Carmen took a deep breath. Then another.
"Does it change anything?" she asked.
"You mean, is Sloop still coming home?"
Carmen nodded weakly, like she was terribly afraid of the answer.
"Don't you worry none," Rusty said. She was smiling. "Sloop will be back here Monday, just like he always was going to be. Al being missing doesn't change a thing. The sheriff made that clear. It was a done deal."
Carmen paused a long moment, with her eyes closed, and her hand on her lips. Then she forced the hand down and forced the lips into a trembling smile.
"Well, good," she said.
"Yes, good," her mother-in-law said.
Carmen nodded, vaguely. Reacher thought she was about to faint.
"What do you suppose happened to him?" she asked.
"How would I know? Some sort of trouble, I expect."
"But who would make trouble for Al?"
Rusty's smile thinned to a sneer.
"Well, take your best guess, dear," she said.
Carmen opened her eyes. "What does that mean?"
"It means, who would want to make trouble for their lawyer?"
"I don't know."
"Well, I do," Rusty said. "Somebody who buys them a big old Mercedes Benz and gets sent to jail anyhow, that's who."
"Well, who did that?"
"Anybody could have. Al Eugene takes anybody for a client. He has no stan-dards. He's halfway to being plain crooked. Maybe all the way crooked, for all I know. Three quarters of his clients are the wrong sort."
Carmen was still pale. "The wrong sort?"
"You know what I mean."
"You mean Mexican? Why don't you just come right out and say it?"
Rusty was still smiling.
"Well, tell me different," she said. "Some Mexican boy gets sent to jail, he doesn't just stand up and accept his punishment like we do. No, he blames his lawyer, and he gets all his brothers and his cousins all riled up about it, and of course he's got plenty of those come up here after him, all illegals, all cholos, all of them in gangs, and now you see exactly how that turns out. Just like it is down there in Mexico itself. You of all people should know what it's like."
"Why should I of all people? I've never even been to Mexico."
Nobody replied to that. Reacher watched her, standing up shaken and proud and alone like a prisoner in the enemy camp. The room was quiet. Just the thump and click of the old air conditioner running somewhere else.
"You got an opinion here, Mr. Reacher?" Rusty Greer asked.
It felt like a left-field question in a job interview. He wished he could think of something smart to say. Some diversion. But it wouldn't help any to start some big clumsy fight and get himself thrown off the property inside the first ten minutes.
"I'm just here to work, ma'am," he said.
"I'd like to know your opinion, all the same."
Just like a job interview. A character reference. Clearly she wanted exactly the right sort of person shoveling horseshit for her.
"Mr. Reacher was a cop himself," Carmen said. "In the army."
Rusty nodded. "So what's your thinking, ex-army cop?"
Reacher shrugged. "Maybe there's an innocent explanation. Maybe he had a nervous breakdown and wandered off."
"Doesn't sound very likely. Now I see why they made you an ex-cop."
Silence for a long moment.
"Well, if there was trouble, maybe white folks made it," Reacher said.
"That's not going to be a popular view around here, son."
"It's not looking to be popular. It's looking to be right or wrong. And the population of Texas is three-quarters white, therefore I figure there's a three-in-four chance white folks were involved, assuming people are all the same as each other."
"That's a big assumption."
"Not in my experience."
Rusty bounced her gaze off the tabletop, back to Carmen.
"Well, no doubt you agree," she said. "With your new friend here."
Carmen took a breath.
"I never claim to be better than anyone else," she said. "So I don't see why I should agree I'm worse."
The room stayed quiet.
"Well, time will tell, I guess," Rusty said. "One or other of us is going to be eating humble pie."
She said paah. The long syllable trailed into silence.
"Now, where's Sloop's little girl?" she asked, with an artificial brightness in her voice, like the conversation had never happened. "You bring her back from school?"
Carmen swallowed and turned to face her. "She's in the barn, I think. She saw the sheriff and got worried her pony had been stolen."
"She's only a child," Carmen said.
"Well, the maid is ready to give the child its supper, so take it to the kitchen, and show Mr. Reacher to the bunkhouse on your way."
Carmen just nodded, like a servant with new instructions. Reacher followed her out of the parlor, back to the hallway. They went outside into the heat again and paused in the shadows on the porch.
"Ellie eats in the kitchen?" Reacher asked.
Carmen nodded.
"Rusty hates her," she said.
"Why? She's her granddaughter."
Carmen looked away.
"Her blood is tainted," she said. "Don't ask me to explain it. It's not rational. She hates her, is all I know."
"So why all the fuss if you took her away?"
"Because Sloop wants her here. She's his weapon against me. His instrument of torture. And his mother does what he wants."
"She make you eat in the kitchen, too?"
"No, she makes me eat with her," she said. "Because she knows I'd rather not."
He paused, at the edge of the shadow.
"You should have gotten out of here," he said. "We should be in Vegas by now."
"I was hopeful, for a second," she said. "About Al Eugene. I thought there might be a delay."
He nodded. "So was I. It would have been useful."
She nodded, tears in her eyes.
"I know," she said. "Too good to be true."
"So you should still think about running."
She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Shook her head.
"I won't run," she said. "I won't be a fugitive."
He said nothing.
"And you should have agreed with her," she said. "About the Mexicans. I'd have understood you were bluffing. I need her to keep you around."
"I couldn't."
"It was a risk."
She led him down the steps into the sun and across the yard. Beyond the motor barn was a horse barn. That structure was red like everything else, big as an aircraft hangar, with clerestory vents in the roof. There was a big door standing a foot open. There was a strong smell coming out of it.