"Do these people have a dog?" Earl asked.
"No dog," Jake replied, just above a whisper. The question recalled his comment to Pete earlier this evening, about how every ranch ought to have dog, just to watch over things. The accidental irony of thing hit him as odd. In a part of the country where dogs are large and common – even revered – it just so happened that he had worked on the two spreads that didn't have one.
Jake led Earl along the crowned picket fence that bordered the manicured garden and lawn around the house, finally coming to a small gate that adjoined a sidewalk leading to the back porch. He carefully reached over the fence, undid the latch, and pushed open the little swinging door, which Earl carefully shut behind him, once the two were inside the yard.
They walked up the walkway, between nicely contoured shrubbery's that funneled them toward the back door of the house, and then mounted the steps to the porch. Jake tested the door, grabbing the handle and turning it gently, finding it unlocked, as he suspected it would be. He gave a light push and door hinged inward, seeming to beckon them inside as it slowly and seductively swung open.
* * * * *
Py was doing his best to keep it from showing, but as he sat on the couch, preternaturally still, he thought that he might be about to explode. An awful, surreal fugue state had settled over the place, with Pete, his chair positioned in front of the radio console, rocking slowly back and forth, staring absent and glassy-eyed into space, like a dead man in a limbo of bare perpetual motion. Tory was a still life, frozen in her chair at the dining room table, her gaze slightly elevated, as if she was receiving signals from a divine low frequency transmitter. Playing low in the background, the radio broadcast dreamy orchestral sounds from a fictional ballroom in a never visited city. Leaning against the door, muzzle up, Pete's loaded rifle stood sentry, exuding from its purposeful fo1m and design more personality than anything else in the room. Py looked around, moving only his eyes, half expecting to see Death reclining self-satisfied in the shadows.
* * * * *
"There you are!"
Jarvis reached out and grabbed Lily by the elbow, as she saw him and tried in vain to duck back into the sea of boots and blouses. "Let go of me!" she said, loud enough that a couple of the men around her turned to see what was going on. "Come here so I can talk to you!" Jarvis said.
"Are you okay, ma'am?" a tall cowboy asked, leaning in close to her so he could hear her reply.
Jarvis gave a look of frustration and disgust. He tapped the guy with the back of his hand. "Her daddy asked me to keep an eye on her – and she keeps runnin' off!" He said sternly, letting his voice rise a little, for effect. The tall guy looked at him, then glanced back and Lily and turned his back on them both, returning his attention to the dance floor, which was packed with revelers. Jarvis leaned in close to Lily. "Okay, I don't mind if you don't want to dance with me, but you can at least quit runnin' off. I'm tryin' to do what I was told."
"Oh – you mean you're trying to do your job," Lily said, indicting him through a twist on his own words.
"No, that's not what I meant," Jarvis said, equally put-out. "The thing is, your daddy did tell me to stay with you – and I told him I would."
"I don't need you to stay with me," Lily said.
"I know," Jarvis reassured. "Just quit tryin' to make things so hard on me."
Lily thought about it for a second. "Okay, then if you're just going to be hanging around me, make yourself useful. I'd like a soda."
Jarvis winced. He looked over at the refreshment booth, which was packed. "From over there?" he asked, hoping otherwise.
"Where else?" Lily replied, like he was an idiot.
"Oh God," Jarvis moaned. Then, pointing a warning finger at her – "You stay right here, okay?"
Lily wouldn't pledge verbally, but offered a single quick confirming nod, and Jarvis grudgingly left her side and went to fight his way through the throng around the soda dispenser. When he came back, drinks in hand, Lily had once again disappeared.
* * * * *
"Tom- our two guys have entered the back of the house. Copy. Do you want me to move closer? Over."
"Copy on that." Bickering sniffed and wiped at his nose, which was beginning to tingle in the ever cooling night air. "Hold where you are, let's keep the angle wide.
Over."
Glenn Tyler was starting to wish something would happen so they could abandon their post in the pasture. The moisture coming up out of the cold earth was starting to seep into his clothing, and he wanted to at least stand up and move around. "I would love to know what's going on in there right now," he said, staring hopefully toward the house.
"What time do you have?" Bickering asked.
Agent Tyler set his binoculars down and picked up a flashlight, which he shined on his wrist watch, careful not to aim the light so that it might be seen from the house. "I've got . . . ten thirty-eight," he said.
"They are right on schedule," Bickering said, appreciating their efficiency.
"Jobbs estimated they'd be in the house twenty minutes, which would bring them out just after eleven. Let's keep an eye on the time." He didn't have to tell Tyler what he was thinking, that a delay may mean trouble of some kind, necessitating a decision around whether or not to move in. The bald artifice for such a divergence from what was planned would be to make arrest to safeguard the property of an honorable citizen. They both knew the actual impetus may be to save the life of one not so highly respected thief.
* * * * *
"There are two safes. One is in an office on the first floor – down the hall there – and the other is upstairs in a den." Jake spoke in low tones as he and Earl moved quietly through the darkened house. "Let's do the den first. There's a linen closet up there. We'll need some pillow cases . . ."
Earl followed along, looking all around him at the cavernous interior, taking it all in like a visitor to a museum. "Man, this guy has gone some juice, huh?" he said, a little in wonder. Even in the dark he could see that he was lost in a higher tax bracket.
"Walker keeps the keys to his vehicles in the office," Jake said, continuing to strategize. "I saw our truck out in the yard. We can get the key last thing we do."
Jake was being careful not to tip his hand. The hope was that he could go through with this thing, with Earl watching, and never reveal that he was doing anything less than living up to his end of his deal with Pico, Earl's boss. He'd go into custody with everybody else, so even as the axe fell, Jake would appear to be just another perpetrator caught in a police sting. It would eventually be known that he was turning state's evidence – then he'd have to worry about the repercussions of his actions – but supposedly then he would have the protection of the authorities. The trick was getting to that safety. Doing this job with Earl was the major minefield he had to cross along the way. He had only to stay alive and deliver the goods. Then, perhaps, he could finally put an end to the horror and start the process of getting out of life what he wanted.
Jake and Earl climbed the staircase to the second floor, still being careful not to make a sound, though by now they were fairly well convinced that no one was going to surprise them by being home. As they reached the second floor landing, Jake motioned Earl to follow him as he crept along the wall until he came to the first door on his right. There they entered the den.
Once inside, Jake went over to the desk and switched on a little brass lamp that cast just enough light to illuminate the writing surface. He then moved around behind the desk and opened the middle drawer. The first thing he saw was payroll checks and an open envelope, stuffed with greenbacks. Jake took the money out and rifled through it once, as if it were a deck of playing cards.
"How much you think?" Earl asked ingenuously, as if he'd never seen that kind of cash before.
Jake just shook his head. "The linen closet is just down the hall on the left. Go get me some pillow cases," he said, but Earl shook his head. "No way, Jakey. I ain't lettin' you out of my sight." Jake gave
a disgusted look, then pushed the cash back into the envelope and placed it down on the desk top. He moved quickly out of the room and went down the hallway, leaving Earl behind. When Jake came back, carrying several white linen pillow cases, he saw Earl standing over by the desk, leafing through the money, and he quickly went over and ripped the cash out of his hand, stuffing it, envelope and all, inside one of the cases.
"I was just lookin' at it," Earl said, none too happy with the treatment.
Jake ignored him, walking back around the desk and again shuffling through various other papers and things he found inside the drawer. He was looking for Frank's ledger – the one in which he accounted for every piece of property in his life, where Jake knew he would find the combinations to the safes. Not finding it in the middle drawer, he closed it and opened a side drawer, searched through it, and then opened and searched through another. Finally he found it.
"What's that?" Earl asked.
"Keys to the kingdom," Jake said, carrying the book over to the heavy steel strongbox.
CHAPTER 48 – Dangerous Complications
Frank had been skirting the backside of the crowd, doing his best to avoid the temptation to stay at the side of Sheriff Miller, who went to another side of the room every time he saw Frank come near him. He ran into several neighbors and greeted each of them as best he could, under the circumstances, trying his best not to seem preoccupied. The conversation he was hearing wasn't helping assuage his anxieties in the least. There was a rumor going around that cattle thieves were at work in the area, and a nervous under-current was building in intensity among the ranchers present, which included most every cattleman in Weld County. Frank listened to the talk and played dumb, biting his bottom lip to keep from spilling everything he knew about what was going on. He kept moving so temptation, and nerves, didn't get the best of him, and finally he saw Jarvis in the crowd.
"Where's Lily?" Frank asked.
Jarvis, standing with sodas in both hands, looked fretfully at his boss. "I don't know," he said piteously. "I'm tryin' to find her. I got her a soda."
Frank looked nervously around for his daughter. He didn't see her, but he did notice her best friend, Betty Wilkerson, standing beside a baby-faced high school kid in a cowboy hat. Frank tapped her roughly on the shoulder, and she turned around as if ready to protect herself. "Oh – Mr. Walker!" she said, surprised to see who had been so discourteous.
"Have you seen Lily?" he asked gruffly.
"I saw her a few minutes ago," she told him, a little frightened by his behavior. "Where?"
"Out in the parking lot," she said. "Just now?" Frank asked, anxiously.
"No, maybe five minutes ago," Betty said. "I saw her drive off in her car. She said she was going home."
Frank seemed to stagger back at the news. He turned around and looked at Jarvis Lang. "Shit, Jarvis!" he said, sweeping his hand so that he unintentionally knocked one of the sodas out of Jarvis' hands, sending the bottle rolling noisily out onto the cement dance floor and splattering several bystanders with sticky cola. "Hey! You son-of-a-bitch!" a man said, but before he could see who was responsible Frank was already charging through the crowd toward Sheriff Miller, Jarvis in eager pursuit, pleading – "I tried to hold onto her, Frank!"
* * * * *
"This is Sheriff Miller. Tom, do you copy? Over."
"Christ!" Agent Bickering grabbed the walkie-talkie, alarmed by how noisy it sounded in the still night. "This is Bickering. Over," he said, staring over at the house for signs that the crackling transmitter might have been heard by those they surveilled.
"We've got a problem, Tom. Frank Walker’s daughter is on her way back to the ranch. Do you copy? Over."
Glenn Tyler looked over at Torn Bickering. "This is bad," he said, an assessment completely unnecessary to Bickering's understanding. "What do we do?"
Bickering thumped the transmitter against his forehead, trying to free-up thought processes that had suddenly become blocked, maybe in part punishing himself for mishandling this whole thing. He hadn't liked any part of this operation – hadn't felt comfortable with the preparation time – but he had seized the opportunity. Now it was getting sticky. "Can you give me an estimate on when she should be expected to arrive here? Over."
"She left about ten minutes ago and probably isn't more than five minutes from your location." There was a pause and then Ben Miller's voice crackled through. "Tom, I've got her father here with me. He’s pretty concerned. Over."
"We can try to stop her, Torn," Glenn Tyler said, suggesting anything that might help Bickering calm the fears of the guys on the other end of the transmission.
Bickering shook his head, acknowledging the thought. Into the walkie-talkie he said – "We'll try to intercept her out on Country Road 16. Over."
"Good luck. Over," came the reply.
"Can you believe this?" Bickering said, pushing himself up off the ground and getting to his feet. He brushed himself off and looked back to the south, in the direction of Longmont. "Holy shit . . ." he started to say. Tyler noticed a change in his voice, and he looked up from his prone position, and saw where Bickering was looking. "Are those her headlights?"
Tyler stood up and looked off toward the south. In the distance he could see two lights corning their way, racing at high speed across the black countryside, nearing the intersection where their driver waited. "I bet they are," Tyler said.
Bickering grabbed his radio transmitter and called Agent Ben Franks, who sat in his car, waiting for orders. "Come in Ben, this is Torn." "Copy, Tom. Over," came the reply. "We've got an emergency situation developing. There is a car approaching your position from the south. I want you stop that car. Do you copy?"
"/ copy you, Tom. Over."
"Do not use force. Repeat. Do not use force. The driver is a young girl – Frank Walker's daughter," Bickering said. "We need to keep her from proceeding on to the house. Over."
Franks opened the door to his car and stepped one leg out, so that he could stand up for a better vantage point, but he no sooner got up to where he could see the oncoming car before it flashed past him through the intersection, traveling at high speed toward the ranch.
Franks ducked back into his car and radioed Bickering that she was already past his position, but it wasn't necessary. Looking back in the direction of the headlights, Bickering could see that it was already by the grove of trees where he had hoped to stop it. A fear welled up in him – the thought of what might happen if young Lily surprised the two men who were, at this moment, burglarizing her home. He laid the walkie-talkie down on the ground and started moving toward the road, watching the approaching lights as he walked, considering what to do. Then a sudden jolt of panic went through him and he took off on a dead run in a desperate effort to reach the road and intercept the car.
Seeing his boss and realizing what he was doing, Glenn Tyler joined in the chase, and the two of them lit out across the countryside.
In the dark of the night, running on uneven terrain potted with soap weed, the two agents struggled to retain their balance, as the car grew closer and closer, until they could begin to make out its form. Bickering tripped and skidded face first along the ground, somehow continuing to run, pushing himself up and charging on toward the roadway.
Tyler, too, took a tumble, but jumped back up and dashed in a mad panic to stop the girl. They had better than three hundred yards of ground to cover, and it was going to be close.
On the other side of Walker Ranch, Agent John Coverdal was desperately transmitting messages through his walkie-talkie, trying to relay information to the lead agents. "Tom, do you copy? This is Coverdal. Can you hear me Tom?" he repeated.
"I've got a visual on a large, heavy-set man, wearing dark-colored clothing. He's in the windrow at the back of the house. Do you copy this Tom? Over."
Bickering and Tyler ran side-by-side, huffing and puffing as they approached the road. The headlights seemed large now. They could almost make out the grill work on the car. T
yler caught his foot in a tiny ravine, where the rain had washed the soil out about a foot deep, and he collapsed in a heap, landing hard on his chest, knocking what wind he had left out of him. Bickering noticed Tyler's fall, but the road appeared not that far distant now. Convinced that he might yet be able to make it, he charged on, even as Lily's Buick tore through the night, sending a cloud of dust up behind her that rose in the dark like mushrooming black ink. He reached the four-strand barbed wire fence that bordered the pasture and blocked him from the road. The car was practically upon him now. Glenn Tyler could be heard, puffing up behind him, limping along as fast as he could on an ankle that he was certain was now sprained. Bickering grabbed a hold of the third wire up from the bottom of the fence, and pushed it down so that he could bend himself between it and the top wire, which he tried to push up with his other forearm, then quickly he was through. He righted himself, having only a drainage ditch to cross to reach the road, and he started down into it, finding it more steeply graded that he had imagined, then reached the bottom and started up the minor escarpment.
Up on the road, Lily drove with her mind on only one thing – getting home and getting this evening behind her. She looked down at the clock mounted in the dash, which read nearly eleven o'clock. Get home and crawl into bed, try to forget the whole day – that's all she was thinking. Forget how angry she was at her father, and at that idiotic Jarvis Lang.
Agent Bickering fought through the weeds, pulling at them for leverage as he tried to get through to the roadway. He reached the top just as Lily's car flashed by, and then there he was standing on the road, drenched in sweat watching her headlights move away from him, headed toward Walker Ranch, a quarter mile in the distance.
Out in the middle of the pasture, the anxious voice of Agent Coverdal continued to crackle through the speaker on the wireless receiver. "Are you copying this, Tom?
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