“A misunderstanding. You got free room and board. Now you’re just free.”
Grant didn’t move. “A misunderstanding about what?”
“Vehicle ownership. Used to be that rustling cattle was the most heinous offence around here. Now, stealing a man’s car can get you shot. You didn’t get shot. Consider yourself lucky.”
“I didn’t steal a man’s car either.”
The sheriff took the empty bag and put it in the desk drawer. “That’s where the confusion arose. About who owned the car.”
“Sarah Hellstrom loaned me the car.”
“There you go, misunderstanding things again. Wasn’t hers to lend. Somebody else owns it.”
“Let me guess. Macready.”
The sheriff slammed the drawer shut.
“You don’t want to go around guessing all the time. Guess wrong and you could be in a world of hurt. Sarah let you take the car. The owner reported it stolen. You got arrested. Simple mistake. Absolution Sheriff’s Department won’t hold it against you.”
Grant nodded and threw a farewell glance around the office. The noticeboard was thumbtacked with pieces of paper. No wanted posters, just official messages and codes of practice. An old recruitment poster was creased and torn where it had been pinned and removed several times.
“You don’t recruit locally, do you?”
“Say what?”
Grant looked at the booze-soaked lawman and noted the difference between him and the young deputy who’d arrested him. He doubted the sheriff had any part in hiring and firing. He doubted there was any power at all sitting behind that desk.
“Ex-army, was he?”
“We’ve all served.”
“But some more recently than others.”
“What you saying?”
“I’m saying he needs to get his procedures right before his next arrest.”
“He didn’t shoot you, did he?”
“He did not.”
“Count yourself lucky then. If you looked less English and more Mexican, you might have been shot as an illegal. Coming from the way you come. Down there.”
Grant considered the map in his head. “Down where?”
The sheriff shook his head in amazement.
“Big Bend. Back door to the border. If you can get over the hills.”
ten
It was almost noon by the time Grant got back to the hotel. He needed a shower, a shave, and a change of clothes. Breakfast had been taken care of, courtesy of the Absolution Sheriff’s Department. Walking into the lobby, the world became dark. His eyes felt like the sun had burned them out. The sudden change was like somebody turning the lights off. He waited for his eyes to adjust.
There was a scurrying noise behind the reception counter. For a second he thought of the rat at the town dump and the old-timer with sniper’s eyes. Then the scurrying stopped and the office door clicked shut. If there’d been a woman in the doorway, she’d have snatched her kids off the street and hidden inside. It was that kind of feeling. The ceiling fan thwup, thwup, thwupped.
Grant felt the hairs bristle up the back of his neck. He squinted as his eyes quartered the room. The leather chairs and the coffee tables—clear. The reception desk and the pigeonholes—clear. The cigarette machine and the staircase—clear. Whatever the desk clerk had been doing, it didn’t seem to involve anyone else. Not down here, anyway.
Something had changed, though. Grant’s eyes repeated the cycle. Chairs and tables. Reception and pigeonholes. Cigarette machine and stairs. Twice. By the third pass he’d figured out what it was. The key hooks in front of the pigeonholes were empty. All the keys had gone.
He crossed to the foot of the stairs and looked up at the landing. The bedroom doors were closed, but that didn’t mean anything. If there’d been a sudden influx of customers for the block bookings, they’d be in their rooms anyway. He listened for the sound of voices or creaking floorboards. There weren’t any. He didn’t believe there was anybody up there any more than he believed the rooms were being held for block bookings. The missing keys were to prove a point. He already knew what that point was. Grant was a stranger. Strangers don’t last long around here.
The room key felt solid in his trouser pocket. He took it out and hefted it in one hand, then started up towards his room. The stairs creaked all the way up.
The room was empty, the door still locked. That surprised him. Grant had expected a welcoming committee to rescind what little welcome had been offered him. The bed hadn’t been slept in. The chair was still there. Nobody was leaning a chair against the wall on two legs.
Grant locked the door behind him and quickly checked the drawers. Nothing was missing. His clothes were untouched. The velvet case was still hidden under his T-shirts. He walked over to the window and looked down at the street. Dry and dusty and bleached by the sun. There was nobody out there keeping an eye on his room. There was no foot traffic. There was no traffic of any kind.
Absolution was dead in the midday sun.
He thought about that and smiled. Only mad dogs and Englishmen went out in the midday sun. That’s what the song said. Except in the Saturday afternoon Westerns he used to watch at Moor Grange School for Boys. High noon was the time for showdowns in the street. Even in that lizard Western Rango.
The shower was piping hot. Grant soaped himself down and cleaned the jailhouse smell off his body. He shaved in the wash-basin, wiping steam from the mirror. Peppermint flooded his mouth when he brushed his teeth. Body spray and aftershave completed the turnaround. He stepped back into the bedroom naked, toned, and clean as a whistle.
The chair was still empty. The bed was still neat and tidy. But Grant wasn’t alone. The chair leaner was standing in the open doorway with the room key dangling from one hand. Stetson pulled down over his eyes. Cowboy boots crossed in a vain attempt at being cool. He raised his head so he could peer from beneath the brim.
“You should get some clothes on. You’ll catch a chill in the draught.”
Grant stood in the middle of the floor.
“There wouldn’t be a draught if you’d get your own room.”
“All the keys are gone.”
“Yes. I noticed. And yet you’ve got one there.”
The cowboy looked surprised at the key fob in his hand. “This? This ain’t no room key. It’s an official key. Opens ’em all.”
“You work for the hotel now?”
The cowboy paused for effect.
“I work for the sheriff’s department.” He opened the leather waistcoat to reveal a tin star on his chest. “And you’re in violation.”
Grant showed what he thought of the Absolution Sheriff’s Department by grabbing his wedding tackle in the towel and giving it a vigorous rub. When he was satisfied it was dry, he threw the towel over the chair and pulled on a clean pair of jeans. Socks and trainers followed in case this became a fight. Then he took a T-shirt out of the drawer, careful not to uncover the stethoscope case, and pulled it over his head.
“In violation of what?”
“The Absolution Mercantile Association Act. Hotel has strict rules about ex-cons staying in its rooms. And you spent last night in the town jail.”
“It was a mistake.”
“Yeah. And you keep making ’em. Pack your bags. You’re moving out.”
Grant could feel the heat burning his cheeks. Anger was beginning to bubble somewhere way down inside him. He took a deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth to calm himself down. These people kept trying to needle him. Normally he’d be happy to oblige, but this trip was personal. He didn’t want to tarnish the memory he was here to honor by getting into a fight over a hotel room.
He put the holdall on the bed and began to pack in reverse order to the way he’d unpacked the day before. He made sure everything was neatly folded. Jeans, T-shirts, socks. Spare trainers. And
the velvet stethoscope case. His toiletry bag went in last. He laid the orange windcheater across the top, between the handles, then stepped back from the bed.
“I saw the recruitment poster in the jailhouse.”
The deputy pushed off from the doorframe.
“Oh yeah? You thinking of applying?”
Grant stabbed his finger several times as if poking holes.
“It had pinpricks all over the corners. You know. From being put up and taken down so often. I guess that’s why there’s so many pricks in the sheriff’s department.”
He tossed his key across the room and the deputy caught it. Grant picked up the holdall and walked through the door so fast the deputy had to back off or get shouldered out of the way. He went down the stairs and straight out the front door without paying. He hadn’t used the room anyway.
Grant knew exactly where he was going. He remembered it from the map. Not the only other accommodation in Absolution but the nearest. He turned right out of the door and headed west along First Street. The sun had moved across the sky but lost none of its power. The heat was exhausting. The two-lane blacktop shimmered in the haze. A bird cawed in the distance, but Grant couldn’t see what it was. Did they have crows in Texas? He wasn’t sure.
He passed the post office and Front Street Books. The bookstore looked out of place in the frontier town, even if Absolution wasn’t exactly on the frontier. It wasn’t a million miles from the Mexican border, though. That was something he hadn’t thought about when he’d decided to come and visit Eduardo Cruz. Or the fact that Mexicans still weren’t welcome in the Alamo state. He supposed it was like being a Muslim in New York—not exactly flavor of the month.
The motel was just where Grant expected it to be. Half a mile out of town amid the scrub and cactus of the roadside landscape. The metal sign had less bullet holes than the welcome to absolution sign at the other end of town.
ABSOLUTION MOTEL & RV PARK
Come On In and Take a Load Off
(Town Mortuary Around Back)
Hunter Athey, Proprietor
It wasn’t one of those highway motels with rooms lined up on two floors across the back of the parking lot. The kind with wafer-thin walls and a walkway veranda that ran the length of the building. Absolution Motel & RV Park was more of your desert motel, with separate cabins arranged haphazardly around sprawling grounds. Cactus abounded. Grant corrected himself—cacti in the plural since there were so many of the prickly little fuckers. The cabins were ranch-style stucco with wooden porches and shiny tin roofs. The office building was another Alamo clone standing guard on the drive-in turnaround just off the main road.
Absolution shimmered in the afternoon heat beyond the stucco walls. A tall, slim windmill with a weather vane sucked water up from the depths—a newer version of the well at Adobe Flats. The similarities weren’t lost on Grant. At least the cabins didn’t look like the Alamo or the burned-out hacienda.
Grant crossed the turnaround and walked under a dirty brown archway with a carved wooden sign dangling on rusty chains. The letters cut into the wood were primitive and less expansive than the metal sign on the highway.
ABSOLUTION MOTEL
There were no bullet holes this time. He went up a short path, avoiding being snagged by the encroaching cacti on either side, and pushed open the office door. The interior was cool and welcoming. No ceiling fan; air conditioning instead. It was clean and bright and empty. The windows let in plenty of sunlight. The open-plan office had plenty of space. There was no private door to a secret inner sanctum, but there was nobody manning the reception desk either, an ordinary desk instead of a counter. The place was deserted.
Grant looked out of the window towards a wide expanse of cleared land. Stubby monoliths jutted out of the ground at regular intervals, three feet high with connections for water and power. The RV park. For tourists traveling the west in their gas-guzzling mobile homes. The RV park was empty too. Judging by the lack of tire marks, it had been empty a long time.
A toilet flushed, and Grant noticed the restroom door for the first time. Way off to the right in the corner of the room. The door opened and a hunched figure shuffled out, drying his hands on his trousers. He stopped in mid-stride, a comical look of surprise on his face.
“You sure you’re in the right place, fella?”
The man wasn’t as leathery as the others, but he was no spring chicken either. His eyes burned with intelligence, but his shoulders looked weighed down with unachieved promise. His voice was strong but tinged with worry, as if he was striving to be commanding but unsure if he could pull it off.
Grant dropped the holdall at his feet. “If you’ve got more vacancies than the Gage, I am.”
The man’s shoulders drew back, and he raised his head. “They give you that block-booking bullshit?”
“They did.”
The man nodded, and a smile played across his lips. “Then you must be the fella off the train. Spent the night at the taxpayer’s expense.”
“At the sheriff’s. Yes. That’s me.”
The man shrugged. “Al ain’t a bad man.”
“The sheriff?”
“Sheriff Al Purwin. He just got sidetracked. Like the rest of us.”
“If you mean from the straight and narrow, I’d agree with you.”
The man waved the comment aside. “The Gage kick you out?”
“They did.”
The man perked up. He finished rubbing his hands on his pants and came over. “Any man kicked out of the Gage is welcome here.”
He stuck a hand out, and Grant shook it.
“I don’t suppose you have any tea, do you?”
The Absolution Motel did have tea. Hunter Athey prided himself on it. Little yellow sachets of Lipton’s English Breakfast Tea—the ones with a single teabag on a string. He also had coffee and drinking chocolate and all sorts of other foreign beverages, back from when Absolution got its fair share of overseas visitors wanting to explore the rugged landscape of Big Bend National Park. The proprietor brewed a mug of tea while Grant filled in the register and pocketed the keys for cabin number 5. Not because numbers 1 to 4 were occupied but because number 5 was the farthest from the main road. Judging by the lack of traffic, Grant reckoned that was being optimistic, making Hunter Athey the only optimist Grant had met since arriving in Absolution.
Grant tapped his pocket. The keys rattled.
“Just one thing.”
He stirred sugar into the mug of tea.
“Number five being round the back, I’m not sharing with the recently departed, am I?”
Athey laughed—something else in short supply.
“The sign outside? No. The mortuary’s out back of the office. Took my doctor’s shingle down years ago, but I’m still the nearest thing this town’s got to a mortician.”
Grant tapped his mug with one finger.
“If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have let you squeeze my teabag.”
Athey laughed again. “From what I hear, I’m not the only person who wants to squeeze your teabag.”
Grant puzzled over that one.
“How’s that?”
Athey tilted his head and looked sideways at Grant. “You don’t think Sarah lends her car to just anybody, do you?”
“Gilda’s Grill. Yes. That was nice of her.”
“Nice is Sarah’s middle name. Too nice for that prick Macready.”
“Junior.”
“Right. Macready senior’s too big a prick to even be a prick.”
“Unless you’re Big John Holmes.”
“Unless you’re him. Point is, if Sarah gets caught in the middle of this, she could get hurt again. And she’s about the only person in Absolution who doesn’t deserve to get hurt.”
“In the middle of what? I only borrowed her car.”
“And ended up in ja
il on the back of it.”
“That as well.”
Grant thought of something else. A trace memory that had barely registered when he’d seen it. Sarah Hellstrom touching her cheek when she’d said about Doc Cruz, “He’s a doctor. Business never dries up.” He decided to test his theory.
“So, when you were doctoring, did you attend to her bruising?”
“Sometimes. Mainly that was Doc Cruz.”
“You knew Eduardo Cruz?”
Grant felt a shiver run down his spine. The fact that he was already talking about Cruz in the past tense. He hoped that wasn’t a Freudian slip. Hunter Athey shook him even more.
“Sure. We shared the shingle. He was my partner.”
Grant thought carefully about his next question. “What happened to him?”
Athey lowered his eyes. The bonhomie dropped out of his voice. “Who said anything happened?”
“He isn’t here anymore.”
“Didn’t live here. Had a house out at Adobe Flats.”
“He isn’t there anymore either.”
A light went on in Athey’s head. “Ah. That’s why you borrowed the car.”
“So? What happened?”
The light went off again. Athey became as reticent as everybody else he’d met, apart from Sarah Hellstrom.
“Business dried up.”
Not what Sarah Hellstrom had said. One thing a small town always needs is a doctor. With Cruz gone and Athey no longer practicing, Grant wondered where that left the rest of the people of Absolution.
“And now you just run the RV park and the mortuary.”
Athey shrugged his shoulders. They looked as if they were carrying the weight of the world. The effort of shrugging them appeared to tire him out.
“RV park’s on its last legs. And people don’t even hang around here to die. Not much call for a mortician these days. Town’s dying on its feet. Don’t need to smell formaldehyde to know that.”
“Macready seems to be doing all right.”
Athey’s face hardened. “Yeah, well. Some businesses thrive on hard times.”
“What business is that?”
Athey fixed Grant with a stare that drilled right through him. “The kind I don’t want Sarah getting in the middle of.”
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