by C. J. Box
He thought: No matter what, there will be hell to pay. THE RIVER NARROWED through two tall bluffs. Although there were no rapids, it was as if the current doubled in speed. Joe could feel wind in his face as they shot forward. The tiniest dip of an oar would swing the boat about in water this fast, so he steered as if tinkling the keys of a piano, lowering an oar blade an inch into the water to correct course.
As the river swept them along and the bluffs receded behind them, Joe started to recognize the country. To the left, a mile away, was a hill that looked like an elephant’s head. Joe had noted it when he brought Sheridan out to Julie’s. They were getting close.
The river widened. The tops of willows broke the surface of the water a third of the way to the edge where the river normally flowed. The thick river cottonwoods began to open up a little, allowing more muted light to fall on the surface of the water.
Because his feet and legs were numb, Joe didn’t notice at first that the boat was sinking. But when he looked down, he saw the water at his ankles. Somewhere, they had knocked more cracks or holes in the hull and the water was seeping in. He hoped they could get to the ranch before the boat filled again. He didn’t want to waste another minute dumping the boat.
Nate started to bail with a gallon bucket. It helped a little, but he was losing the battle.
They rounded a bend and the river calmed for the first time since they’d gotten in the boat. The roar of the water hushed to a whisper. Calves bleated just ahead. The ranch was near.
That’s when Joe saw her. She stood on a brushy hillside on the left side of the bank, hands on hips, thrusting her face out at them with an unfamiliar smile on her face. His mouth dropped open and he let the oars loose in an involuntary reaction.
“Joe, who is that?” Nate asked, pausing with the bucket in midbail.
“Opal,” Joe said, his voice cracking. “Opal Scarlett.”
This was the exact spot described by Tommy Wayman, Joe thought. She was there after all, had been there all along, just as he surmised.
Nate said, “Why in the hell is she standing out in the rain like that?”
“She’s watching the end play out,” Joe said.
“Jesus,” Nate said, screwing up his mouth in distaste.
“Opal!” Joe called out, raising his hand. “Opal!”
She didn’t react. As they passed her, she didn’t turn her head and follow them, but stared stonily at the river.
“She couldn’t hear you,” Nate said.
“How could she not?”
“She’s old and probably deaf. And definitely crazy,” Nate said in awe.
“She’s been here all along,” Joe said, his mind numb.
THEY BEACHED THE boat on the bank with the water level inside just a foot below the sides of the boat. Another ten minutes in the water and the boat would have gone under.
Joe and Nate leaped out, leaving the boat to settle into the mud.
“Should we go talk to Opal? Find out what she knows?” Nate asked, looking from Joe to the ranch compound ahead and back. He was deferring to Joe, a new thing.
“Later,” Joe said. “I don’t want to waste time chasing her down. We can find her after we’ve checked out the buildings. Sheridan and Lucy have to be here.”
Nate gave him a look. How could he be so sure?
Joe didn’t acknowledge it. He just felt they were near.
The side of a fresh embankment had collapsed into the river from the rain. Something stuck out of the dirt of the wall, something long, horizontal, and metal. Nate approached it and rubbed mud away. It was the bumper of a car. Someone had used a front-end loader to bury it.
“Cadillac,” Nate said, rubbing the mud away from the logo.
“Opal’s car,” Joe said. “She buried it so everyone would think she drove away.”
“Why would she do that?”
Joe thought for a moment. “So she could see who won.”
AS THEY APPROACHED Arlen’s house, Joe’s insides were churning and he tried to swallow but couldn’t. He glanced down at the gun in his hand and saw it shaking.
“I’ll take the front,” Nate said. “You come in the back.”
“If you see Keeley,” Joe said, “shoot first.”
“Not a problem,” Nate said.
As they parted, Nate reached out and grabbed Joe’s arm.
“Are you okay to do this?”
Joe said, “Sure.”
“Stay cool.”
JOE KEPT A row of blooming lilac bushes between him and the side of the house as he jogged around toward the back. As at Hank’s house, he could see no lights on inside or any sign of life. A calf bawled in the distance from a holding pen. Drizzle flowed softly through the leaves of the trees and running water sang through the downspouts of the house.
He stepped over a low fence and into the backyard. There was a porch and a screen door. The door was unlocked and he opened it as quietly as he could and stepped inside a dank mudroom. Heavy coats lined the walls and a dozen pairs of boots were lined up neatly on the floor.
The mudroom led to the huge kitchen where Sheridan had described seeing Arlen and Bill Monroe together. Joe skirted the island counter and stood on the side of the opening that went into the family room.
There was an acrid mix of smells in the home—chemicals Joe couldn’t identify, years of cooking residue on the walls, and a sharp metallic smell that took him back to Hank’s dining room: blood.
Holding his weapon out in front of him, he wheeled around the opening into the dining room and saw the Legacy Wall facing him. All the pictures were smashed and some had falled to the floor.
Furniture was overturned. A china cabinet was on its side, spilling coffee cups and plates across the floor. A wild spray of blood climbed the Legacy Wall and onto the ceiling. A pool of blood stained the carpet on the floor. It was a scene of horrendous violence.
“Jesus,” Nate said as he entered the living room from the front and looked around.
Joe called, “Sheridan! Lucy!”
His shout echoed through the house.
Nate wrinkled his nose. “I recognize that smell.”
“What is it?”
“Alum,” Nate said, turning to Joe. “It’s used for tanning hides.”
THEY HEARD A sound below them, under the floor. A moan.
“Is there a basement?” Nate asked.
Joe shrugged, looking around.
They heard the moan again. It was deep and throaty.
Nate turned, strode back through the dining room toward the front door. “I remember seeing a cellar door on the side of the house,” he said.
Joe followed.
OUTSIDE, NATE TURNED and hopped off the front porch toward the side of the house Joe had not seen. They rounded the corner of the front of the house and Joe could see a raised concrete abutment on the side of the house with two doors mounted on top. The mud near the cellar was pocked with footprints leading to it. Someone was down there.
Nate ran to the doors and threw them open, stepping aside in case someone was waiting with a weapon pointing up. But nothing happened.
“Sheridan!” Joe called. “Lucy!”
The moan rolled out, louder because the door was open.
“Come out!” Nate boomed into the opening. “Come out or I’ll come in!”
The moan morphed into a high wail. Joe recognized the sound of Wyatt Scarlett when he had cried months before, after his brothers got in the fight.
Joe pushed past Nate and went down the damp concrete stairs. Nate followed. The passageway was dark but there was a yellow glow on the dry dirt floor on the bottom. The chemical smells were overpowering as Joe went down.
He had to duck under a thick wooden beam to enter the cellar. Nate didn’t see it and hit his head with a thump and a curse.
What Joe saw next nearly made his heart stop.
It was a taxidermy studio. A bare lightbulb hung from a cord. Half-finished mounts stared out with hollow eye sockets from work
benches. Foam-rubber animal heads filled floor-to-ceiling shelves, as did jars and boxes of chemicals and tools.
Wyatt sat on the floor, his legs sprawled, cradling Arlen Scarlett’s head in his lap. Arlen’s eyes were open but he was clearly dead. There was a bullet hole in Arlen’s cheek and another in his chest.
Hank was laid out on a workbench, his cowboy boots pointed toward the ceiling, his face serene but white, his hands palms up.
And there was a man’s entire arm on the floor near Wyatt’s feet, the hand still gripping a pistol. The arm appeared to have been wrenched away from the body it had belonged to. Joe didn’t think that was possible, but here it was right in front of him.
Joe didn’t even feel Nate run into him accidentally and nearly send him sprawling.
Wyatt looked up at Joe, his eyes red with tears, his mouth agape with a silent sob.
“Wyatt,” Joe asked. “What happened here?”
The youngest Scarlett boy closed his eyes, sluicing the tears from them, which ran down his cherubic face.
“Wyatt . . .”
“My brothers are dead,” Wyatt said, his voice breaking. “My brothers—”
“Who did it?”
Wyatt’s body was wracked with a cry. “Bill Monroe.”
Joe thought, J. W. Keeley.
“Where is he now?”
“I don’t know. He ran away.”
“Is that his arm?”
There was a flash in Wyatt’s eyes. “I tore it out when I saw him shoot Arlen. Took a few hard twists to get it off, but it wasn’t no different than pulling a drumstick off a roast chicken. I thought I killed him last night, after what he did to Hank. But he came back.”
Joe thought: the blood on the wall and ceiling upstairs.
“Wyatt,” Joe said, trying to keep his voice calm but failing in his effort, so as not to upset the big man and cause him to clam up, “Did Monroe have my girls with him?”
Wyatt nodded sincerely. “And Julie too. But not anymore.”
“Where are they?”
“They’re safe,” Wyatt said. “They’re in my shack. Bill told Arlen he was going to hurt them if he didn’t give him money. Julie’s mom is there too.”
Joe felt a surge of blistering relief, although he wondered where Keeley was.
Nate asked, “Why are your brothers down here, Wyatt?”
Wyatt clenched his eyes, shaking his head from side to side. He looked like he was about to explode.
“Nate,” Joe cautioned.
Nate pressed, “Why did you bring them down here?”
Wyatt whispered, “To preserve them. So I could preserve my family. We’re very important here. And I loved them so much, even though they didn’t love each other.”
“Like you preserved your mother,” Nate said.
Wyatt nodded, then looked up eagerly. “Did you see how I made her smile? Not many people knew how she could smile. They know now.”
Joe turned and shouldered past Nate toward the stairs.
“Please stay with him,” Joe said. “I’m going to get my girls.”
HE RAN ACROSS the ranch yard and down the road on legs that felt as if they could go out on him at any time. The scene in the cellar had scorched his soul, and Wyatt had broken his heart.
J. W. Keeley was still out there, as far as Joe knew. As he ran, he held his gun in front of him with two hands and searched for movement of any kind in the dark trees near the ranch buildings. How far could a man go with a wound like that? he wondered. He’d seen deer and elk travel for miles with legs blown off by careless hunters. But a man?
Then a horrible thought struck him as he ran: Maybe Keeley had found the girls.
SHERIDAN’S EARS WERE numb from the drumming of the heavy rain on top of the tin roof of the shack. So numb, that when she heard a cry outside she doubted herself. Just like earlier, when she thought she had heard gunshots outside and even the unholy scream of a man. In both instances, she couldn’t be sure that her mind wasn’t playing tricks on her. This time, though, she heard the cry again.
“Is someone coming?” Lucy asked from where she was huddled in the corner of Wyatt’s shack.
“Yes,” Sheridan said, summoning all her courage to approach the window and brush aside the curtains. The glass outside was still streaked with running rain, and the view undulated with the water. A form appeared in the murk outside, a man running toward the shack, crouching, looking around as if he expected someone to jump out at him. She recognized the form.
She stepped back from the window and turned to Lucy, beaming. Everything was suddenly right with the world.
“Dad’s here,” she said.
LIGHTS WERE ON in Wyatt’s shack. Joe called out again for his girls.
He heard, “Dad!” in response. Sheridan. A squeal from Lucy.
The door was locked. He jerked on it and pushed it but it was solid.
“Just a minute,” Doris Scarlett said from inside.
He heard a bolt tumble and the door opened inward. Sheridan, Lucy, and Julie Scarlett were inside, behind Doris. Lucy ran across the floor and bear-hugged Joe around the waist.
Sheridan said, “Boy, are we glad to see you.”
Joe closed the door behind him and pulled both of his daughters to him.
Lucy said, “You’re really wet, Dad.”
Joe sat them down on a couch with Julie. He said, “Tell me what happened.”
Sheridan told the story about Bill Monroe taking over the bus, turning it around, and getting it stuck as they tried to cross the river. Monroe made them get out and wade to the shore, and they all walked through the mud to the ranch. When they got to the ranch yard, Wyatt came out of the cellar and yelled at Bill Monroe to go away. When he wouldn’t, Wyatt charged him and hit him in the head. Monroe ran, cursing, toward the house where Arlen now stood on the front porch. Monroe went inside and Arlen closed the door. Wyatt told Doris and the girls to go to his shack and lock the door and not let anyone in unless it was he.
That’s all they knew, and Joe was relieved. They hadn’t seen what happened inside.
“Have you seen Keeley since?” Joe asked, “I mean Bill Monroe,” he said, to avoid confusion.
“Keeley?” Sheridan asked. “Like April? The same name?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Sheridan and Lucy exchanged glances. “I told you his face was familiar. He has April’s eyes,” Sheridan said to Lucy, referring to her stepsister.
Joe shook his head, then looked at Julie who sat silent and alone at the end of the couch. She had no idea she’d lost her uncle and her father. Thank God her mother was there.
He stood.
“Keep the door locked, just like Uncle Wyatt told you. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Doris said, “Please be careful. Don’t let Bill Monroe find us.”
Her voice trembled as she said it, and Joe could see how terrified she was. “Can’t you stay with us?”
Joe considered it, but shook his head. He couldn’t assume Keeley had bled to death. And even if he had, Joe needed to see the body. “I need to be sure he can’t threaten anyone again,” he said.
“Then can we go home?” Lucy asked.
Joe didn’t ask which home she meant. “Yes,” he said.
ALL HIS THOUGHTS and feelings channeled into one: revenge.
Joe returned to the front porch of the house and studied the concrete. Although rain had washed most of it away, he could still see traces of blood. Nate must have missed it in his haste on the way in. He backed off the porch and looked around on the wet loam. A spot here, a splash there. Headed in the direction of the barn.
It was like following a wounded game animal, Joe thought. He looked not only for blood flecks but for churned up earth, footprints, places where Keeley had fallen as he staggered away.
There was a depression in the grass where Keeley must have collapsed, his shoulder punching a dent into the turf that was now filling with water and a swirl of blood.
Keeley h
adn’t made it all the way inside the barn. He sat slumped against the outside door, next to a boat that was propped up against the wall. Joe guessed Keeley was going for the boat when he collapsed. Keeley’s legs were straight out in front of him. He held the stump of his left arm with his right hand, covering the socket tight with bone-white fingers. Still, blood pumped out between his joints with every weakening heartbeat. Joe couldn’t see a weapon on Keeley or near him as he approached. But Keeley watched Joe the whole time, his eyes sharp, his mouth twisted with hate.
“That Wyatt, he is the one I never thought about,” Keeley said. “He is one strong son-of-a-bitch.”
“Yup,” Joe said, remembering when Wyatt snapped the Flex-Cuffs.
Keeley looked up. His eyes were black and dead. “You destroyed my family. My brother, my sister-in-law, my baby girl.”
“What do you mean, your baby girl?”
“She was my daughter,” Keeley said, and his eyes flashed.
“You mean, you and Jeannie . . .”
“Damned right, me and Jeannie. Ote was gone a lot.”
“So that’s why you did all of this? To get back at me?”
Keeley nodded.
“I did all I could to save April,” Joe said, angry. “We loved her like our own.”
“Horseshit. Not like a father loves a daughter.”
Joe clenched his fists so hard his nails broke the skin on his palms. He wanted to hurl himself at Keeley and start swinging. Instead, he felt his right hand relax enough to undo the safety strap on his service weapon.
“What the hell would you know about being a father?” Joe said. “You were just the sperm donor.”
“Fuck you,” Keeley spat.
Joe stood over him, looking down, his fingers curling around the pistol grip. “Is there any point in talking to you? Telling you I had nothing to do with the death of your daughter or your brother?”
