Lone Creek

by Neil Mcmahon

  But while she couldn’t have realized it, she’d stabbed her finger right into that old wound. What I’d scarred it over with was really a patch rather than true healing—an illusion of freedom. It was the crutch I needed to get by, and it worked pretty well. I didn’t often have to face a reminder that, at heart, I’d given up.

  And with Celia on my mind anyway, it had triggered more thoughts of her. I knew she’d felt that same thing. We’d never talked about it, but it had been the basis of the bond between us. Her fantasies of a storybook life as Mrs. Pete Pettyjohn were her own crutch.

  Maybe Pete had sensed this, and he hadn’t been able to handle knowing that he wasn’t enough for her, and that even if he bucked his mother’s opposition and married Celia, the marriage would inevitably come crashing down. I’d come to wonder if in his black drunken depressions he’d seized on a way of sheltering them both in the only way he could see.

  It was easy to imagine that death would be the cure.

  The afternoon was clouding over with dark blue-gray strata, driven by an agitating breeze. At this hour the cemetery was deserted. A lot of people came out to pay their respects after church, but the rush was over. The headstones were mostly small and uniform, laid out in rows with military precision, an exactness found after life ended but rarely available during it. Many were decorated with flowers or wreaths, and some had carefully tended plants growing from the earth.

  My father’s had none of those things, and I felt a pang of shame. I hadn’t been here for a while—more than a year, and now that I thought about it, closer to two. It wasn’t a ritual that I observed on any particular dates. Sometimes it felt right, and at other times necessary. I stood there for a minute or so, then walked out into the bleak rolling prairie.

  The old man had been like many others of his time and place, genial but distant. He’d grown up on a ranch, and in a way, he’d raised his family like we were stock. As long as things operated smoothly, he let us run, and he busted his ass to make sure we got all of what we needed and some of what we wanted. But like most of those men, he also had an iron-hard edge that you didn’t want to cross. By and large, things operated smoothly.

  Far and away the most serious time I ever saw that dangerous side of him was a couple of weeks after Celia died. I hadn’t been sleeping well. Late on a Saturday night, I heard the house’s front door close, the way it had the time she’d come home from her date and lain beside me. Half in a dream, I tiptoed down the hall to the top of the stairs.

  My father was just about to walk out the door. He had his service pistol in his hand and was shoving it into his coat pocket.

  He turned to look up at me. I’d seen him angry plenty of times, but this was beyond anger. There was a coldness in his eyes that froze me motionless.

  Then his face softened—not with love, but with the wry understanding that he’d been caught. He put down the pistol, sat on the couch, and started taking off his boots. I went back to bed, scared and heartbroken. I didn’t comprehend what I’d seen, but somehow it brought home the reality that she wasn’t coming back.

  As I’d gotten older, I had fit the incident into the overall scenario I constructed. It started with Celia informing Pete that she was pregnant. He knew his mother was dead set against marriage. That left him trapped between the two women in a vise of stress he couldn’t handle. I could easily envision Celia taunting him as he waffled, and him losing his head like he had when he’d beaten me at her slight goading—except that this time, he took his rage out on her.

  Then his wealthy, powerful family had stepped in to protect the son who carried their lineage and their hopes, quashing an autopsy because it would have shown her pregnancy and injuries not consistent with the supposed cause of death. Their consolation gift to her parents was really a buy-off.

  My father had been gone from home all evening before I saw him with the gun—probably drinking. I had come to believe that he’d suspected the cover-up, and had decided to call on Pete or Reuben and find out the truth. But he’d seen me crouched on the stairs and turned back—not from fear of prison or even of getting killed, but from realizing that he still had his family to care for.

  He didn’t take well to being helpless, and he was stonewalled by powers that he couldn’t counter without damaging our lives. The fight seemed to slip out of him after that, and more and more, it was like he was going through the motions. When he learned that he had terminal pancreatic cancer, he seemed almost relieved.

  I had to admit that my scenario was pure speculation. I’d never found any tangible reason to believe anything other than that Celia had been thrown by a horse. And while Pete had sentenced himself and carried out the sentence, some part of me wished I’d never awakened that night and stopped my father from whatever truth he might have uncovered.

  TWENTY-NINE

  The Red Meadow was a no-frills blue-collar bar near the Labor Temple, with a clientele mostly of older men whose hairlines were compressed from wearing cowboy hats or hard hats or military helmets all their lives. It usually got busy at quitting time on weekdays, but right now there were maybe half a dozen regulars talking quietly at tables, holding off the drag of a Sunday afternoon. I liked the Red Meadow fine, but I tended toward places like O’Toole’s that had more exotic aspects, such as women, and I came in here only once in a while after work.

  Elmer hadn’t yet arrived. The bartender, a spry gent of about sixty with a ducktail haircut and a neatly folded apron, greeted me with the old-time saloon keeper’s question:

  “What’s yours, pard?”

  It almost made me smile. I told him, laying down one of Balcomb’s hundred-dollar bills. I’d brought along several of them, thinking I might have a chance to finish settling up with Sarah Lynn. I didn’t want his money in spite of the bullshit he’d put me through, and I’d already decided that if the judge did drop my bail, I was going to send back whatever was left over. But he could damned well buy Elmer and me a few drinks, and I was going to set aside a few more for Slo and for Madbird.

  The bartender got out a frosty can of Pabst, poured a generous shot of Makers Mark to go with it, and was just setting down my change when he looked sharply toward the door. His face was not happy. The rest of the room went quiet. I swiveled around.

  Bill LaTray, my bail bondsman, was standing there with his granite stare fixed on me.

  My feet just about left the floor, from the shock of seeing him, confusion about how the fuck he’d known where I was, and worry over what he wanted.

  He didn’t come inside and he didn’t pay attention to anybody else—just jerked his head in summons and stalked out again.

  The bartender’s gaze swung back to me. It hadn’t gotten any happier, and I realized he figured I was one of Bill’s clients. I wanted to say, Wait, it’s not what you think.

  But it was.

  I pushed a couple of dollar bills toward him for a tip.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said. I hoped to Christ that was true.

  Bill was standing on the sidewalk when I stepped out, wearing his trademark caramel-colored leather coat. He looked like if you hit him with a baseball bat, it would break. His face was an exploded minefield of pockmarks and scars; his eyes were the color of mud. He had on some kind of cologne that got my own eyes watering from five feet away, which was where I stopped.

  He cupped a match and lit a rum-soaked crook cigar, inhaling a drag that burned half an inch of it, then crushed the still flaring match between his blunt fingers.

  “You blow town, it’s gonna cost me twenty-five thousand bucks,” he said. “You know what that means?”

  “I’m not going anywhere. The charges are being dropped.”

  “That ain’t official till tomorrow. And I hear you got something else on the burner, a lot bigger. So let’s get this straight—you’re there at the courthouse first thing in the morning.”

  I’d calmed myself a little by realizing that how he’d found me wasn’t so mysterious. I’d driven past h
is pawnshop, only a few blocks away. That was one disadvantage of having a highly visible vehicle like mine. He must have seen it, jumped in his own rig, and caught up with me here.

  But the why of it was a lot less soothing. If his contacts in the sheriffs’ department had told him I was a flight risk, and he was nervous enough about it to chase me down, it suggested that I was still very much on the radar in Kirk’s disappearance—that if anything, the heat was rising. They might even have come up with new reasons for suspicion since this morning.

  “What did you hear?” I said.

  The lit end of the cigar pointed at my face. “Don’t bullshit me. You know what I’m saying.”

  “I’m not bullshitting you. Gary Varna talked to me about Kirk, yeah, but everything seemed OK.”

  “That’s between Gary and you. What I’m telling you is if you don’t show, you don’t know what trouble is.”

  That might not have been entirely accurate, but it was true that he made the law look benign.

  “I’ll be there,” I said. “Trust me.”

  He blew out a contemptuous snort of smoke.

  “Let me give you a little advice. Don’t never say that to a bondsman.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “It just sort of slipped out.”

  His stare bludgeoned me a few seconds longer, but then he gave a nod that seemed grudgingly satisfied.

  I wanted to find out what he knew, but it was clear he hadn’t come here to share information, and I’d heard stories of him punctuating these kinds of warnings with a couple of thumps that would leave a man pissing blood. I started edging toward the door of the bar.

  But Bill seemed to relax, his tone turning almost friendly.

  “If things go your way tomorrow, your girlfriend got some money coming back,” he said. “She can come by the shop and pick it up.”

  “Thanks, I’ll pass that on,” I said, remembering unhappily that I’d never returned Sarah Lynn’s call.

  “Or you could leave it on retainer. Let’s say the pop’s a hunnert next time.”

  “What? A hundred thousand?”

  “Right. That’s ten grand up front for me, so we’re talking another seven and a half,” he said, with an air of cheerful companionship. “Now, if a guy’s got trouble coming up with that kind of cash, I’m willing to work with him, but I’d need some collateral. You got a place up Stumpleg Gulch, right?”

  “Jesus Christ,” I said. “Are you telling me this is about to happen?”

  “You never know. I’m just saying you got backup, that’s all.” He stepped forward abruptly and gave my deltoid muscle a viselike squeeze between his thumb and forefinger. No doubt it was intended as encouraging, but it made me feel like a chicken being sized up for the pot.

  My new best friend lumbered away. I walked back into the bar, lightheaded, like I’d just gotten up from a knockout punch and wasn’t quite in touch with where I was. I told myself that he didn’t really know anything solid. It was perfectly reasonable that he wanted his hat in the ring if a lucrative bond came around. He was just a businessman trying to drum up a little trade.

  The bartender hadn’t dumped my drinks and eighty-sixed me, thank God. He still seemed wary, but I’d kept my trouble outside, which was the cardinal rule, and the hundred-dollar bill had probably helped.

  I downed the shot and chugged half the beer, and bought another of both.

  THIRTY

  Elmer came in a few minutes later, wearing the pearl gray Stetson he saved for town. He was well known at the Red Meadow—all the men greeted him, and when he came to stand next to me, I could feel my status rise. The bartender brought his drink, a brandy sage, without his having to ask. I’d never known anyone to drink sages and presses—short for Presbyterians—except these kinds of aging westerners. Probably not many bartenders knew how to make them anymore.

  When Elmer reached for his wallet, I stopped him, and we went through the little hand-wrestling match that men did in situations like that.

  “This is on me,” I said. “Least I can do for you taking the time.”

  “Hell, I was glad for the excuse. Besides, you ain’t even got a job anymore.”

  “Yeah, but I just came into a little windfall.”

  He put his wallet away, gruffly pleased. I wished I could have told him where the windfall was from—that would have tickled him more still.

  The bartender retired to the well to wash glasses, leaving Elmer and me in private.

  “I know I’m putting you in an awkward spot,” I said quietly.

  “Don’t you worry about it. If Kirk got in trouble, I’ll give you ninety-nine to one there ain’t nobody to blame but Kirk. I don’t know what all he was up to, but I know some of it wasn’t much good. So does Reuben, and probably so do the sheriffs.”

  “I sure hope so.”

  He cocked his head to the side and eyed me. “From what you told me, it sounds like you got a notion.”

  “There’s something ugly rustling around out in the bushes, Elmer. That’s about all I know at this point, and I’ve got to be real careful what I say.”

  “Never mind about that, neither,” he said. “You get to be my age, there’s more and more you’d as soon not know. Ask what you want and I’ll tell you what I can, and that’ll be the end of it.”

  We touched glasses and drank.

  “I’m interested in a pair of horses that showed up at the ranch a couple days ago,” I said. “Thursday, near as I can tell.”

  The creases in his forehead deepened. “I didn’t hear nothing about it. Thoroughbreds?”

  “I don’t know, but they didn’t go to the new stables. They got put in that calving shed at the north end, and they were gone next morning.”

  He pushed his hat back with his knuckles. “Well, I promised I wouldn’t get nosy, so I won’t ask how the hell you know that. But I don’t see how it could of got by me.”

  “Maybe it was set up that way,” I said.

  I could see that he wasn’t just puzzled now—he was real unhappy that something like that had happened on his turf.

  “Anybody moving stock on or off the ranch is supposed to come to the office and file a record,” he said. “It goes into a computer now, but I don’t get along too good with that, so I get a paper copy, too. I look them over every day before I leave, same as I always done. And I’m damn sure there ain’t been nothing about horses.”

  So—it sounded like they’d been sneaked in, probably at night. I doubted Balcomb had brought them himself. Unloading horses from a trailer was no job for somebody who didn’t handle them well. It might have been Kirk, or another accomplice, or just a delivery driver who wouldn’t have had any reason to suspect anything was out of the ordinary.

  But there was still no hint about where they’d been brought from, or why.

  “Anything else that’s gone on around the ranch that seems, you know, not right?” I said.

  “‘Not right,’” he said musingly. “Well, nothing flat-out wrong, at least that I know of. There’s plenty that don’t make sense to me.”

  “Such as?”

  “Their thoroughbred operation, for one thing. It don’t much exist.”

  I’d been aware of personal tensions on the ranch, but this was the first I’d heard that things weren’t going well inside the inner sanctum of the Balcombs’ compound. Elmer was the only person I knew who had access to it, and I’d never talked to him about it before.

  “I thought that was the whole point of them buying the place,” I said.

  “That’s what they told everybody, all right. Big-time breeding, and selling all over the world. But there ain’t any horses there, to speak of—just their own two, and a couple it seems like they keep more for show than anything else. Not a one bought or sold yet, or bred, neither. Stands to reason they’d take a while to get started, but it’s getting on two years now.”

  It seemed clear that Balcomb didn’t care for horses, and the reason Laurie had given for his wanting to raise them seem
ed supplied. Still, it was hard to understand why a shrewd businessman would sink a ton of money into a setup and then sit on it. There was plenty of expert help available, and the word was that Laurie’s family connections would provide a springboard to the high end of the market. A top thoroughbred could sell for millions of dollars. A stud fee could go well into six figures.

  “I guess they must have enough of their own money,” I said.

  “I guess. The cattle operation pays for itself and then some, but it sure ain’t paying for all that new building. Well, I’ll double-check about them two horses, Hugh. Balcomb probably just didn’t bother to tell me. Seems like the only reason he even keeps me around is so when he gets visitors, he can trot me out like I’m Buffalo Bill or some goddamned thing.”

  “I can see where that wouldn’t sit too well,” I said.

  He shrugged. “At first I kept thinking I didn’t mind too much, but then I started minding thinking that, if you know what I mean. Anyway, it just don’t feel right any more. I’m about ready to get out—probably should have when it sold. Reuben treated me real good, so I’ll get a couple thousand a month as long as I live, plus Social Security and the VA. It’s just—”

  He lifted his Stetson with his right hand, smoothed back his hair with his left, and replaced the hat, a gesture as unconscious and automatic as breathing. His face looked weary and disturbed.

  “That’s been my life, pretty much,” he said. He raised his glass and drained it, the ice cubes gently rattling. I signaled the bartender for refills.

  There went another piece of the real old west.

  THIRTY-ONE

  I got back to my place about five o’clock, parking down the road in the trees and looping around the back on foot like Madbird and I had done earlier. Everything was quiet and seemed untouched. I was starting to feel the strain from nerves and lack of sleep, and the temptation to crash came down hard on me. But—especially if I was going to end up back in jail soon—I had more ground to cover.