Lone Creek

by Neil Mcmahon

  I stood there for most of a minute, trying once again to choose the path of greatest caution.

  Then I realized how much I’d been letting fear push me around more in these past several hours. I was sick of it and disgusted with myself, and I was goddamned if I was going to back down from Kirk Pettyjohn.

  I drove toward him slowly, watching for nervous glances toward a hidden weapon or accomplice. But his gaze stayed fixed on me, and he raised his hands palms forward in appeasement.

  “I come to apologize, Hugh,” he called.

  That was a possibility I hadn’t considered, although “apologizing” no doubt meant trying to lie his way off my shit list.

  Visibility was better in the open space of the lakeshore, and for once he wasn’t wearing his sunglasses. His eyes were twitching and darting around, and his face was as pale as his hair, and even in the night’s chill, beaded with sweat. On top of the meth, he was scared. My anger eased off a little. I hadn’t intended to really thump him, anyway—maybe bitch-slap him once or twice. Now I decided just to rattle his cage some more. But as I walked toward him, I didn’t have to pretend I was pumped up.

  “Now, hang on a minute,” he said. His hands rose higher and made pushing motions, like he was trying to keep me away. “I know you’re feeling kind of sore.”

  I kept walking. “You can start your apologizing with that lumber you burned, Kirk. Did Balcomb pay you extra? Or does that kind of thing go with your job?”

  “Lumber I burned?” He edged around the Jeep to keep it between us. It was another one of his macho props, called a Rubicon, for Christ’s sake.

  “If you lie to me, that’s just going to piss me off more,” I said.

  “I’m not lying—I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “Those old fir planks I took from the ranch. That you ratted me off about and got me sent to jail for this afternoon. Remember?”

  His mouth opened in an O. “Somebody burned them? Whoa there, goddamn it.” He scuttled farther around the Jeep, his words spilling out in a rush.

  “Hugh, I swear, this is the first I heard of it. I snitched on you, yeah. That whole deal today, I feel so bad I could walk under a dime with a tall hat on. But I didn’t burn nothing. Hell, I wouldn’t go near your place—I knew you wouldn’t like it. I tried calling you, and figured you were in the bars and I’d wait here until you came back.”

  I stopped. In the quiet, the elephant that was always in the room with Kirk and me—what had happened with Celia and Pete—became an almost tangible presence.

  When they’d died, I’d been old enough to understand it at least in an adolescent way, but Kirk was only seven or eight. From the little I’d learned about psychology, I’d gleaned that younger kids in particular were prone to take on irrational guilt for traumas like that—that it was common with divorces, and it certainly seemed likely with the tragic death of an only brother, especially a golden boy like Pete. I’d often wondered if Kirk had subconsciously become a fuckup to punish himself. I knew those sorts of things weren’t nearly that simple, that he was probably a fuckup by nature, and that there was the flip side of using the trauma as an excuse. Still, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. My anger dropped another notch.

  Kirk was quick to sense things like that, and he immediately shifted gears into wheedling.

  “Look, I want you on my side,” he said earnestly. “I got a way to straighten everything out between us. At least listen to me, will you? I been waiting here a good hour.”

  I didn’t care about his apology even if it was genuine, but I’d started to see that I might be able to use this to my advantage—play on his nerves and pump him for information, in case my troubles with Balcomb weren’t over after all.

  “I’ve got a real hard time believing you’re going to straighten anything up, Kirk,” I said. “But go ahead, give it a try.”

  “This stays just between us, right? Balcomb’s got me by the nuts.” Kirk shoved his hands into his pockets and stared down at the ground. “I got this little problem. I’ve been getting into some meth. He found out about it, and now he’s holding it over me.”

  I almost smiled. Madbird was going to love hearing that the shitweasel had been bitten by his own fangs.

  “Your secret’s safe with me, Kirk,” I said. His meth use was about as secret as Clark Kent’s other identity.

  “I saw you talking to Laurie this afternoon,” he said. “Balcomb likes to keep tabs on her, so I follow her around sometimes without her knowing.”

  I’d already guessed that he was the one who’d spotted me at the dump. But I couldn’t see how Laurie figured into this.

  “We just passed on the road for a minute or two,” I said. “I never met her before and I’m sure I never will again.”

  His lips peeled back in a grin that, along with his greasy sweat and twitching eyes, was almost a leer.

  “She reminds you of somebody, don’t she?” he said. “My ma, first time she saw Laurie, thought she was Celia.”

  So—I wasn’t the only one, although the validation was undercut somewhat by Beatrice Pettyjohn’s dementia.

  “Well, what about her?” I said.

  “This ain’t about her. That’s how come I saw you going to the dump.”

  Anticipation prickled my skin.

  “Yeah?” I said, trying to sound impatient. “I’ve been there a hundred times.”

  “There was something in it nobody was supposed to see.”

  “You’re going to have to tell me what, Kirk. The place looked the same as ever to me. Come on, quit fucking around. It’s cold out here.”

  He glanced around and lowered his voice conspiratorially, like he was acting in that movie that played in his head.

  “Balcomb—night before last, he made me bury a couple horses in there,” he said.

  Bingo.

  “Horses?” I said, shocked. “Two of them?”

  Kirk nodded emphatically. “He called me up after midnight and told me to get my ass over to the ranch. He never done that before, and when I got there, he was like I never seen him. He can be a scary son of a bitch anyway. Most of the time it’s covered over, but when his temper goes off, it’s like a hand grenade.”

  I realized that my gaze was wandering uneasily around the brushy ridges and gullies. Everything was dark and still except for the lake’s faintly glimmering surface, rippling in a slow hypnotic rhythm.

  “How do two horses die at the same time?” I said.

  “He said they were being shipped someplace and he was doing somebody a favor, keeping them overnight—they were supposed to get picked up in the morning. He didn’t want them mixing in with the ranch stock, so he put them out in that old shed at the north fence. But a bear or cat must have got in and killed them.”

  I laid on the skepticism heavily. “Broke into that shed and killed them both?”

  “I thought it sounded pretty weird, but I wasn’t about to argue, especially the way he was acting. He didn’t want anybody knowing—it’d give the place a bad name. I had to hide them, right now, before daylight. And he didn’t come right out and say it, but I got the real strong feeling he’d kill me if I breathed a word about it.”

  Never mind that Kirk was breathing those words right now. And this wasn’t part of any apology—he was working his way around to something else.

  “I fired up that old D-8 to go get them,” he said. “Then when I saw them, I just about shit. It wasn’t any critter that got in there. Somebody’d took a shotgun to them.”

  I stared at him. “That’s crazy, Kirk. Are you sure?”

  “I know what gunshots look like,” he said haughtily.

  “You think it was Balcomb?”

  “I sure can’t believe he went out there at midnight to check on them and just found them that way.”

  “What in hell would make a man do something like that?”

  I imagined that his eyes turned more slippery, if that was possible.

  “I
don’t know and I don’t want to,” he said.

  “Come on, you must have some notion. You know that ranch like your backyard, and you spend all your time snooping around.”

  He shrugged uneasily. “Sheer meanness, maybe.”

  It didn’t escape me that he hadn’t mentioned them being mutilated. There had to be a reason for that, too—maybe that he was more deeply involved than he wanted to admit. I decided to come back around to it.

  “So you went ahead and took them to the dump?” I said.

  “Yeah. Covered them up and got the hell out of there. I was creeped, I don’t mind telling you. I tried not to think about it any more, but then I saw you heading that way and I started getting nervous about how I’d buried them fast and didn’t have nothing but a flashlight, and what if I hadn’t done too good a job? So I went for a look, and sure as shit, there was a goddamned leg sticking up.”

  I shook my head. “I never paid any attention, Kirk. I guess I was too busy with my own trash.”

  “Well, I got worried that maybe you had, and by then you’d took off. So I called Balcomb and told him we better find out.”

  “And you came up with that bullshit about the lumber.”

  “I never guessed he’d send you to jail.”

  “Just brand me a petty crook and fire me?”

  “I had to cover my ass, Hugh. If word had got out about them horses because I screwed up, Balcomb would have skinned me alive. He was red-hot pissed as it was.”

  He flinched as I reached for him, but I only patted him on the shoulder.

  “Always glad to do a favor for an old pal,” I said. “That’s quite a story, Kirk. But I don’t get how it’s supposed to do me any good.”

  That earnest look came back to his face.

  “I’m thinking you and me could team up, see? Tell Balcomb that now we got something on him, and get him off both our backs.”

  So that was where he’d been going with this. I’d underestimated him. This wasn’t just weaseling—it was gainful weaseling.

  “Sorry to be a hard-ass, Kirk, but it sounds like you’re more interested in helping yourself than me.”

  “Hugh, I swear to God, the way I got this idea was trying to figure out how I could get right with you. But I got to admit, I don’t want to take him on alone. And he’s spooked by you. That’s why he came down on you so hard.”

  I was almost amused. “Balcomb, spooked by me? I don’t pack any weight.”

  “That’s just it. You pack a kind he ain’t used to. He can’t figure out how to get his boot on your neck, and he can’t stand that.”

  I supposed I should have been flattered, but it mainly added to my unease.

  I tried to make sense of the way the pieces on the board had shifted again. Now I had someone to back up my story, and the chances of getting the sheriffs in action were a thousand percent better. Of course that wasn’t what Kirk had in mind—he’d be looking at a meth pop, but that was his problem. My own dilemma was that if Balcomb stuck to our agreement, I didn’t need to get him off my back anymore; and if I angered him again, the risks I’d worried about were still in play.

  Although the thought of nailing him officially was tasty.

  I decided not to decide just then. I’d been running too much stuff around in my head, and I was wearing out. But finding out where those carcasses had ended up would be damned good insurance, and I saw a way to push Kirk in that direction without being too obvious.

  “He got his boot on my neck pretty good today,” I said. “Well, I’m interested in your idea. But you’re going to have to show me those horses.”

  His eyes got slippery again. “I can’t do that.”

  “Why not? I know he threw me off the place, but we could sneak on.”

  “He made me go move them again today, soon as it got dark. I hid them good this time.”

  I hardened my voice a notch. “Then we’re going to have to dig them up again. I’m not getting into it with Balcomb unless I know I’m standing on something solid.”

  “Oh, I can prove what I’m saying. When I went back the second time, I took my camcorder. I got it right here.”

  I blinked in surprise. I was getting more impressed with Kirk all the time, especially because he’d accomplished what I’d failed to.

  I was even going to feel a little bad about taking the camcorder away from him.

  He got it from inside the Jeep and gave it to me. His hand was shaking badly and his face was drawn so tight it looked almost skeletal.

  The camcorder was a new model Sony, not much bigger than my fist. I flipped open the screen and pressed the start button, bracing myself for the sight of those ripped-up horses.

  But sweet Jesus, what appeared was Celia rising up out of Lone Creek, naked and streaming wet and lovely just like in my memory.

  I stared, stupefied, as she waded thigh-deep through the pool below the falls. Then it started to dawn on me that this wasn’t Celia—it was Laurie Balcomb.

  Kirk had been keeping an eye on her, all right.

  She was hard to look away from, and maybe I stayed riveted to that screen a couple of seconds longer than I needed to. I barely heard Kirk’s feet make a quick shuffling sound behind me.

  Something slammed across the back of my head so hard it knocked the camcorder from my hands and buckled my knees. He hit me again as I tried to turn around, and maybe again after that.

  TWENTY-ONE

  When I started coming to, I seemed to be hanging in space outside my head, and for a few seconds I couldn’t get back in. Then I connected, and the harsh ache in my skull brought me awake fast.

  I was propped up behind the wheel of my pickup truck. The engine was running and the truck was moving jerkily down the sloping headland toward the lake—which ended in a sheer fifteen-foot drop into the water.

  Kirk Pettyjohn was trotting along outside my open window, steering with one gloved hand on the wheel. We had about ten yards to go.

  It took me another couple of seconds to start my legs moving. I got my right foot onto the brake and stomped it as hard as I could. The truck lurched to a stop, setting off a clatter of empty beer cans on the floor.

  Kirk’s hand tore loose of the wheel and he went windmilling onward. The truck bucked a couple of times, still in gear, and then the engine died. As I wrenched the door open, Kirk turned around, but instead of coming toward me he ran past me back uphill.

  I knew damned well he’d have a gun in that Jeep.

  I stumbled out and went after him, but he had a head start and he was moving faster. The only weapon I had was an old Schrade folding knife that I carried in my back pocket. I managed to claw it out as I ran, but I didn’t have time to open it before Kirk reached into the Jeep.

  He came out with the cold moonlit glint of metal in his hand—the blued barrel of a pistol. But he hadn’t taken off his thick work gloves, and he fumbled, trying to force his finger through the trigger guard. I skidded on my knees, scooped up a handful of loose sandy soil, and flung it at his face.

  He spun away, spitting and dragging his sleeve across his eyes, and took off again—but this time he was tugging at his gloves with his teeth. I managed to get my knife open as I chased him.

  He stopped suddenly and gave his head a shake like a terrier killing a rat. A glove went flying. He started bringing up the pistol, with his right hand now bare.

  I was only a step away by then, the knife clenched in my fist like a chisel, with the edge forward. I drove it at his hands as if I was throwing a right cross, with the last-ditch frantic hope that I could knock the gun aside or land a slash that would shock him into dropping it. But its upswinging barrel caught my wrist and sent the punch glancing off his chin.

  I felt the blade drag just slightly, like I’d sliced its tip through an overripe pumpkin.

  My momentum carried me a few more steps. I got myself turned around, ready to swing at him again if the boom and slam of a gunshot didn’t knock me down first.

  But he was stum
bling away almost in slow motion, like a toy figure with its battery giving out. His dragging feet seemed to be trying to catch up and get underneath the rest of him. They didn’t. His upper body sagged forward farther and farther, and he hit the ground like he was falling onto a soft bed.

  I staggered over to him, gasping for breath, and knelt. His eyes were open but empty and his throat was pumping blood.

  I fell over on the earth beside him and lay there, staring up into the cold night sky.

  I’d only meant to disarm him. But that tiny drag I’d felt from the punch gone wild was the blade’s tip catching him just under the jawbone.

  My fingers were still clenched around the knife, slick and wet. Twenty-five years of bad blood was on my hands.

  I was aware, in a distant way, that I should be panicked with horror at what I’d done. But except for my burning lungs and aching head, I felt like this was happening to somebody else. I got to my feet and limped down to my truck for a flashlight.

  The key in the ignition was still in the on position. I switched it off, and noticed that Kirk had put the truck in third gear—the reason it had been moving so jerkily. There were a dozen of the beer cans I’d heard rattling on the floor, along with a nearly empty fifth of Jim Beam. None of them was mine.

  And the disposable camera I’d bought, with the film I’d shot of the shed, was gone.

  He’d been out to kill me, after all—and while I’d thought I was working him, it was just the other way around. He’d had a much slicker plan than lying in wait and blasting me. He’d probably watched enough true-crime TV to know that that was bound to leave an evidence trail.

  So he’d spun his story to get me off guard and, idiot that I was, I’d gone for it. He’d set me up to look at the camcorder, knowing I’d be stunned by the sight of Laurie Balcomb. Then he’d clobbered me and planted the booze containers. I’d have been found in the lake, an angry drunk fired from his job and thrown in jail, who’d been driving wildly or had passed out. My friends might have been suspicious, but I had no family to push for an investigation and no status to warrant that kind of trouble and expense. It never would have gone any further.