A Billy Bob and Hackberry Holland Ebook Boxed Set

by James Lee Burke

  The air bag exploded against her chest, pinning her against the seat, but she got her fingers on the window levers and was able to close both windows before the cab filled.

  Water pin-holed through the floor and dashboard, and river gravel crunched against the windows as the truck’s weight settled to the bottom of the pool. The crown of her skull was jammed into the headliner, and while the truck’s engine boiled like a woodstove in the current, she could feel water rising to her brow and she knew in that moment that she would die upside down, like Peter on his inverted cross, alone and abandoned, in her case twice condemned to incremental suffocation inside a premature grave, and she wondered what wickedness she could have done in this life to deserve such a fate.

  She struck at the air bag with both hands and jerked impotently at the safety strap, then gave up and strained her head upward as the water crept over her eyes and into her nose. In high school, on a dare, she had held her breath for almost two minutes in a swimming pool. She wondered if she could do that now and, if she could, if it was actually worth the effort. She had become an expert in dying an inch at a time inside a place where no one could see or hear her. Inside that dark place, death didn’t come by stealth or a sudden rending of the heart. Suffocation was an animal trying to claw its way to light; it was muriatic acid setting the lungs aflame, shards of glass slicing through pink tissue; it was a steel saw cutting through the sternum while the victim was denied the right to scream.

  For the first time in years she wanted to weep, to find the revolver that lay somewhere on the headliner and put a bullet into her brain.

  She saw a shirtless man plunge through the river’s surface, clutching a gunny sack with a huge rock twisted inside it, air bubbles chaining out of the plaster cast on his thigh. A cloud of sand mushroomed around him when he struck the silt at the bottom of the pool. In his right hand Temple saw a bowie knife, one with a blood groove and a point that had been sharpened into a sliver of ice on a whetstone.

  He stuck the bowie knife in the sand and tried to pull the door open with one hand while holding the rock in the other. But the door was wedged hard into the river bottom, and each time he tugged on it, he lost purchase and his feet floated out from under him.

  He let go of the rock, grabbed the frame of the truck with both hands, and drove one boot through the window glass, releasing a torrent of water into the cab. Then his hands were inside the rim of the window, lifting the cab free of the sand.

  He got his arm inside the window, drove the knife into the air bag, and sliced the safety strap off her chest. The cab filled in seconds. Temple could see Wyatt Dixon’s face inches from hers, his face dilating from lack of air. He tore the door loose from the frame, scraping it back in a shower of sand, then grabbed her with both hands and ripped her from behind the steering wheel.

  The eight feet to the surface was like eight miles, then she seemed to soar through wet cellophane and fractured light into wind and trees and air that was as cold and pure as bottled oxygen. She treaded water and turned in a circle, expecting to see Wyatt Dixon, but she saw only a long, bronze-hammered riffle coursing down the center of the river, gray boulders etched with the skeletons of hellgrammites, and the eroded caverns under the bank that hummed with a sound like a muted sewing machine.

  She ducked under the surface again and saw Dixon fighting to free his cast from where it had snagged on the edge of a beaver dam. But his situation made no sense: Why had he floated into the dam, rather than rising straight to the surface as she had? She dove down to the dam, but before she reached him he cracked the cast loose from his thigh and pushed himself toward the bank, where he was able to get one foot on the bottom and break the surface with his chin.

  He crawled up on shore twenty yards down from her, vomiting water on the rocks, trembling like a dog trying to pass broken glass. She walked up beside him and sat down on a boulder, exhausted, out of breath, prickling with cold in the wind.

  His face lifted up at hers, blood and water networking down his thigh, his back and side half-mooned by an old scar. “Tell you what, Miss Temple, next time you come calling, how about using the goddamn swing bridge?” he said.

  “Why didn’t you swim up with me?” she said.

  “Ain’t never learned how. My cell is up at the house. Can you put in a 911 for me? I think I done tore my stitches again.”

  TEMPLE WENT TO the hospital for an examination, but she had no water in the her lungs and came home with me that night. Wyatt Dixon had to go back into surgery. When I visited him the next morning, his leg was in traction, a fresh white cast on his thigh.

  “What you did took a special kind of courage,” I said.

  “Your thanks is appreciated, but I didn’t have no idea who was in that truck.”

  “You know my truck, Wyatt, and you saw my wife through the windshield before the truck went into the drink. Temple and I had a talk last night, and we wanted to tell you we consider the slate wiped clean.”

  He rolled a fish-and-game magazine into a telescopic tube and stared through it at Mount Sentinel. “You gonna be my official lawyer?”

  “I’ll think about it. Why’d you call me yesterday?” I asked.

  “Except for running a little weed and boosting a few cars when I was a kid, I was never a criminal in the reg’lar sense. But I done enough time in enough joints to know everything that goes on in a criminal mind. You and me been going at all this stuff all wrong, Brother Holland.”

  “How’s that?”

  “From my reconnoitering efforts and hands-on intelligence gathering, I’ve figured out Greta Lundstrum probably has done got a whole shithouse of grief dropped on her by parties known or unknown. She was running the security system for that research lab that got busted into, and the guy who owns it, this fellow Karsten Mabus, wants his goods back. So it was her brought all these magpies into Missoula and got Lester Antelope killed and a shank stuck in my leg. Being that I stuck something in Miss Greta on a couple of occasions, my injury probably give her a special pleasure.”

  “For a guy with no badge, you’re not half bad, Wyatt,” I said.

  “You ain’t hearing me, counselor. Them people want their goods. They tortured Antelope but didn’t get what they wanted. They’re gonna come after you next, ’cause they think you’re hooked up with the Indians. When that don’t work, they’re gonna have to decide if they’re gonna keep using American Horse’s wife as bait or go after her personally.”

  “Amber as bait?”

  “Why you think they ain’t grabbed holt of her already? They’re using her to get to American Horse. My bet is them government motherfuckers got their hand in this somewhere, too.”

  “The Feds don’t work that way.”

  He laughed and studied the mountain through his rolled magazine.

  THAT AFTERNOON, Darrel McComb came into my office, twirling a porkpie hat impatiently on his finger. “You think Dixon is a hero?” he said.

  “He saved my wife’s life.”

  “Maybe he was behind her accident, too.”

  I waited for him to go on, but he didn’t. I set down the pen I was writing with. “I don’t have anything else to do. I’ll bite,” I said.

  “Our mechanic says somebody punched a hole in your brake line.”

  “You’re sure. It wasn’t hit by a rock or—”

  “It was a clean cut, about a quarter way through the line. The mechanic says maybe it was done with wire cutters or tin snips.”

  My mouth felt dry, my stomach sick. “It wasn’t Dixon,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  I could feel anger rising in me at his deliberate obtuseness, his 1950s crew cut, his small, downturned mouth, his jockstrap aggressiveness. “The man can’t swim, but he dove in the river and almost got himself killed. On another subject, what’s the nature of your relationship with Greta Lundstrum, anyway?” I said.

  “My relationship?”

  “You two seem to be an item. Bad timing, if you ask me. You know, c
onflict of interest, sleeping with the enemy, that sort of thing?”

  “You want to repeat that more slowly?”

  “I think she hired the guys who attacked Dixon. I think you know it, too.”

  “You’re out of line.”

  “The same people who killed Lester Antelope probably sabotaged my truck. But for some reason you’ve got a perpetual hard-on about Dixon. Maybe you ought to get your priorities straight.”

  “I heard you accidentally shot and killed your partner down on the border. That’s too bad. I guess carrying something like that around could make anybody a full-time asshole,” he said.

  IT HAD BEEN pointless and self-defeating to take my anger out on Darrel McComb. I’d come to appreciate the fact that he was a better cop than he was given credit for, and in all probability he would eventually home in on the people who had murdered Lester Antelope. But in the meantime I had no idea how or when the brake-fluid line on my truck had been cut, and I had no investigative authority to depend on except McComb. That evening, I examined the floor of the garage where my truck had been parked. There was a single drip line across the cement where Temple had backed onto the driveway, which indicated that the damage to the truck had been done inside the garage, perhaps during the day, while we were at work.

  The intruder had no way of knowing who would drive the truck later or the kind of accident, if any, the perforated brake line would cause. It was meant, in almost arbitrary fashion, as either a warning or a mortal distraction, whichever came first. The intent was obviously to change our behavior.

  I believed the network of assassins or mercenaries responsible for Seth Masterson’s and Lester Antelope’s deaths were becoming better at what they did. They wouldn’t repeat their mistakes or misjudge their adversaries as they had Johnny, Wyatt Dixon, and even Lester Antelope, who had put up a ferocious fight before he died. I believed they would soon abduct another victim, take that person to a remote location, allow him or her to consider the possibility that not all of us are descended from the same tree, and this time extract the information they needed.

  My guess was their interrogations were not aimed at pliant subjects. They would choose someone whose principles were such that the subject’s surrendering of them under ordeal would leave no doubt as to their validity. The images that swam before my eyes were like those in crude medieval drawings depicting the fate of those who suffered at the king’s pleasure. In terms of evil, I had come to think of Wyatt Dixon as an amateur.

  That evening I drove west on Highway 12, along Lolo Creek, through mountains and patches of meadowland that were a dark green from evening shade and the wheel lines spraying creekwater above the alfalfa. It was the same route Meriwether Lewis, William Rogers Clark, and the young Indian woman Sacagawea had taken to Oregon, and Lolo Peak was still blue and massive and snowcapped against the sky, just as it was two centuries ago when a million-acre fire could burn and extinguish itself without one human being ever witnessing the event.

  But the fires on the far side of Lolo Pass were eating huge tracts of forest now and incinerating homesteads, and I could see their glow beyond the mountains as I turned off the highway into a manicured ranch set back in domed-shaped hills that reminded me of women’s breasts. The railed fences were painted white, as were the horse barns, which looked more like Kentucky breeding stables than structures on a working Montana ranch. But the main house was even more incongruent with its surroundings than the displaced barns and hot-walker rings. The house was not simply large; its size was far greater than any individual or group of individuals could possibly make use of in a lifetime.

  It was built of cedar and river stone, with cathedral ceilings, the windows orange in the sunset, as though the season were fall rather than summer, the galleries strung with baskets of chrysanthemums rather than petunias. But the alpine design was out of kilter. Shaved and lacquered ponderosa had been used as columns on the front porch, in imitation of Jefferson’s architectural experiments, so that the entrance looked like the gaping mouth of a man with wood teeth.

  There were other aspects of Karsten Mabus’s home that were even more unusual. A sweathouse constructed of dark stone, dripping with moisture, stood not far from a swimming pool shaped with undulating curves that were obviously meant to suggest the outline of a woman. Bronze dolphins mounted on stanchions ringed the pool, along with palm, bottlebrush, and banana trees that grew in redwood tubs. The pool was sky-blue, coated with steam, and at the far end a white-jacketed waiter with oiled black hair stood behind an array of liquor bottles and colored drink glasses clinking with light.

  As I got out of my car a young woman, absolutely naked, walked out of the steamhouse, her skin threaded with sweat, and dove into the pool. Then two others emerged from the steamhouse, also naked, pushing back the hair on their heads, and dove into the pool, too. The three of them swam in tandem to the far end, taking long strokes, breathing effortlessly to one side like professional swimmers, the water sliding across their tanned buttocks. They paused under the diving platform, grasping the tile trough, while the waiter stooped down and placed three frothy pink drinks before them. They did not speak to one another or to the waiter, as though each of them was involved in a solipsistic activity that had no connection to anyone else.

  If Karsten Mabus employed security personnel on the grounds, neither their dress nor their functions showed it. Gardeners and ranch hands came and went; a carpenter hammered nails on a roof; a maid carried jars of sun tea from a picnic table into the kitchen. I had no appointment, nor had I called before coming to his house. But he met me at the door as though I were not only expected but welcome.

  “You’re taking me up on my offer?” he said.

  “To sell ranch properties? No, sir.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Come in, come in.” He closed the door behind me, his hand on my arm. “You’ve given me an excuse to get rid of my current guest.”

  Inside the huge living room, under a vaulted ceiling, sat a gelatinous pile of a man in a white suit. His head was large and bald, marked with soft blue depressions, like those in a premature baby. His lips were the color of old liver, his skin so pale he looked as though the blood had been drained from his veins. I could hear his lungs wheezing under the massive weight on his chest. “I’ll be with you in just a minute, Emile,” Mabus said to him.

  Mabus picked up a whiskey and soda from a table and walked me into a mahogany-paneled hallway that led deep into the house’s interior. “I’ll give you the whole tour in a minute. Let me get rid of this fellow first. In the meantime, entertain yourself with anything you want back here,” he said.

  “I need to talk to you now, Mr. Mabus.”

  “You will, you will. Did you see those three lovelies splashing about in the pool? Like to meet one of them?” he said.

  He held his eyes on mine, suppressing a grin, then suddenly broke into a laugh. He smacked me on the arm. “I had you going, didn’t I? Those are Emile’s unholy trinity. Their collective IQ is less than their thong size, that is, when they wear one. If you think they’re an embarrassment in the pool, how would you like to have them walking around in your house? At a formal dinner with the Vice President of the United States,” he said.

  He laughed so hard he had to hold on to my shoulder.

  Then he was gone, back with his guest, standing over him, the two of them chatting in front of the dead fireplace, sharing drinks from a decanter of whiskey, the mountainous world outside little more than a backdrop for their conversation.

  The labyrinthine interior of the house seemed to dwarf its own contents, which included a bowling alley, a handball court, a playroom for children (the walls garish with cartoon art), a swimming pool divided by a volleyball net, an exercise room, and a library tiered to the ceiling with shelves of leather-bound, gold-embossed books and classics that had been purchased in sets.

  But I couldn’t find a bathroom. A side door in the library gave onto a darkened bedroom, one that upon first glance appeared
windowless. I used the half bath inside it, washed my hands, and came back out, not looking in a deliberate way at the decor in a room whose privacy I was violating. But this room was different from the others, its sybaritic ambiance unmistakable.

  The walls were covered with red and black velvet stamped with silver designs of nymphs, mermaids, satyrs, and, on the ceiling, a depiction of Leda being raped by the Swan. The water bed and the pillows on it were sheathed in black satin. In the center of one wall was an abbreviated red velvet curtain that seemed to have no purpose. I parted the curtain slightly and looked through a fixed glass window onto a recessed boxing ring and a cockfighting pit.

  When I returned to the living room, Karsten Mabus was saying good-bye to his guest at the door. The gelatinous man who seemed to have no blood under his skin looked at the light in the sky the way ordinary people look for impending rain, then put on a straw hat and shook hands before walking toward the pool to gather his companions. I would have sworn Mabus and his friend were speaking in a Middle Eastern language, but perhaps it was my imagination.

  “Let me get you a drink, Mr. Holland,” he said.

  “No, thanks. I’ll make this quick. Someone has created some serious problems for my family. My son received a scholarship which he sorely needed, only to discover he wasn’t eligible. Then I got stung on a bail deal for two hundred thousand dollars. Yesterday the brake-fluid line on my truck was cut and my wife almost died in the Blackfoot River.”

  “I’m sorry to hear all this. Sit down.”

  “I’ll stand, thanks. My purpose is to tell you neither my wife, my son, nor I have anything you want or need. We don’t know the whereabouts of the files stolen from Global Research or even who stole them. We are of no value to you or people who might work for you.”

  He listened respectfully, nodding, taking a sip from his whiskey and soda before setting it down. He held his eyes on me, then began. “The research facility I own here is involved with genetically enhanced food production. Nothing else, sir. Our goal is to end starvation in the Third World. But for some reason probably known only to God, a bunch of fanatics have targeted my company as the source of all evil in the world. I don’t begrudge them their point of view, but I’d at least like to have a dialogue with them before they decide to burglarize my businesses and characterize me as the Antichrist.”