“No, but the county commissioners told me they were going to cut the sheriff budget.”
“Because of her?”
“They’re politicians, Blue. Levers, that’s all they think about. Sheriff has a wild woman so they can cut his budget.”
“I gotta get a new outfit. Mine got took in the line of duty. And I’m going to bill them for the Cooper ranch horses that got stolen.”
Barlow was laughing again, and that was too much for Blue.
“I’m going home. You’re enjoying my misery.”
“I’ll make a campaign issue of it, Blue. Economy in office. What kind of sheriff goes through a dozen horses? You some cat food meat packer?”
“Lay off.”
Blue stormed out into a hot July afternoon. He didn’t want to face Olivia. He didn’t want to tell her about Absalom and his art and his furtive visit to Tammy’s ranch for reasons unclear. He didn’t want to confess that so far, his entire effort to catch Jack Castle had come to ruin. But he would. He hiked the three blocks to his cottage. The lilacs had quit but the pink peonies were still blooming and the yellow roses were rioting and the hollyhocks were about to. The front door was never locked, and he opened. “Blue!”
He found Olivia peering out a window, loving the golden light, which was all she saw. Pearly light she called it, from a mid-day window.
He hugged her as she rose, liking the sweetness of her tugging arms, the warm solidness of her body, the curves that still stirred him, the gentle hands that were measuring him as she saw him with her fingers. “Bad, this time,” she said at last. “You’re tired.”
“Worse than that. I haven’t got him. And he cleaned me out of everything I own and borrowed.”
“You hungry?” she asked.
“Later, Olivia.” He pulled her to the horsehair sofa and sat her down, sliding her hand between his rough ones. “You behaved yourself?”
“As little as possible,” she replied. “Barlow says he’ll campaign on it.” She laughed. “He told me not to let the dogs get close.”
“Olivia...we’ve got a killer loose, and he’s threatening this family. I think he’s still got an eye for Tammy, and that worries me plenty.”
“Tell me about Steve, Blue. Everything there is.”
Blue did, describing a cold murder, done to torment Blue and his family. Little by little he told her, coughing up the story and his failures like phlegm, spitting them out, each hated event, losing horses, losing gear, dealing with Castle’s threats, the hat with the pink ribbon, and finally, the moment when Castle, the most wanted man in the county, casually intercepted Blue on the main road, took another horse out from under Blue, warned him what was coming, and rode off.
“I’m going to get him, going to get him,” Blue muttered, but for the first time he wondered whether he would.
“It’ll get worse,” she said, holding his hand.
“What do you mean?”
“Much worse, Blue.”
“You seeing things again?”
She closed those blind eyes and he swore she shuddered.
“I’ll get him. I’ll find a way,” he said, not knowing what way.
“Is Tammy all right? Foolish question.”
“She’s tough.”
“What aren’t you telling me, Blue?”
She had found him out. She always did. “Absalom,” he said. “Damned boy.”
“I knew, I knew,” she said.
“You knew?”
“That he would come to us.”
“To Tammy, not to us. To protect her, that’s what I make of it. He kept in touch with the warden, and when Castle was freed, he went to protect her and Steve. As if he could protect anything.”
“Don’t, Blue.”
“He bought himself a shiny outfit and when I found him he was up on the mountain with a new rifle watching over the ranch. Now why would he do that? What does he know about Castle that I don’t know?”
“Maybe a lot.”
Blue grunted. He still had some bad business ahead and decided to get it over with. “He’s some kind of artist. Mostly engravings for those fancy magazines, but other stuff too. Wildlife from around here, cowboys, livestock, stuff like that.”
“Is he good?”
Blue stopped what he was about to say. “Yes, he’s good,” he said. “Best I’ve seen.”
She touched Blue’s cheek. It all came out, as if Blue were sawing off his own fingers. Absalom’s gift to her, Blue’s promise to describe each picture in detail so she might see it within herself. Castle’s theft. “I guess that’s pretty hard news, those pictures all wrapped in an oilcloth for you, and now Jack Castle’s got them. He’s probably using them to start fires.”
She was crying. She had borne Steve Cooper’s death, the threats, Blue’s losses. But this stolen gift of unseen and unseeable art from her estranged son was too much, and she sat rigidly, not stopping the tears that rolled down her weathered cheeks.
He couldn’t stand tears, and bolted upright, prowling the parlor. That damned boy had opened up a vein. Why the hell did he come out here, upsetting Olivia’s world like that.
“Anyway, he’s not coming here,” he said. “He’s just causing trouble. And he’s likely to get himself hurt if he thinks he’s a match for Jack Castle.”
But that only made it worse, and Blue clammed up suddenly.
“What did he say?” she asked at last.
“We didn’t talk. He takes offense at me. He kept telling me I haven’t changed. As if he expected me to.”
“He must have said something about why he’s there.”
“Yes. He asked the warden to notify him, and he took off from his work when he heard. Why the hell he’d do that I don’t know. Him and Tammy, they’ve got something between them they’re not telling.”
Olivia stood slowly. “It had to come,” she said. He didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. But she was heading for the kitchen, navigating with her internal compass toward the breadbox. She would soon have a cold summer supper for him, as effortlessly as if she had her vision. “What is Jack like?” she asked, cutting cold beef, feeling her way along with her fingers.
“He’ll make a mistake,” Blue said.
“Is he still...like a son?”
“He never was.”
“Is he different?”
“You don’t stay the same in the pen. He put a bullet an inch from me.”
“How are you going to get him?”
“I almost did, on the road. I almost by God got him by just walking up there and taking him. I almost yanked him off that horse. I saw him hesitate. With him, it’s just challenge, is all. He’s not making himself scarce, he’s not escaping, not fleeing the country. He’s here, looking for trouble, so I’ll let him look.”
“I’m afraid, Blue.”
“Don’t be.”
“He’s worse now. Before, it was devil-may-care. Now there are no rules, nothing to slow him.”
“He knows one rule: fear. I saw it, and I’ll use it.”
She slid a cold beef sandwich before him, and he masticated it slowly, using his remaining incisors on the meat. Her hand slid over his shoulder, across his back, seeing him with her fingers. It was an invitation.
Chapter 19
The next morning Blue got into a fight.
“Four horses and a mule!” County supervisor Abe Clayborne yelled, “Two saddles, tack, a rifle, a shotgun and a slicker! And you want us to pay?”
Blue stood stiffly, miffed at that attitude. He hated this. “Lost in the line of duty.”
“That’s half your annual budget.”
“I want a horse. Hector got shot. Your peace officers need horses, and spares and pack animals, and that’s that. You want me to protect this county without a horse? Sit here and whittle on a stick?”
Clayborne shook his head. “I won’t do it. This claim from your daughter, two horses, I won’t do it.”
“I got two horses from Cooper Ranch in the l
ine of duty; both got stolen. A rifle too. A peace officer can’t just walk off with property. I owe her.”
Blue was getting heated. Begging was unbearable. Clayborne was a pinch-penny. “It’ll come out of your salary, Blue.”
“No it won’t. You’ll buy me some horses, and square it with my daughter, and work it into the county budget.”
“It’ll come out of your jail budget, Blue. I’ll get you one horse and it’ll come out of your jailbird food allotment.”
“The hell it will.”
Clayborne looked pained, the sort of daily pain caused by hemorrhoids. “Buy one damned horse,” he croaked, “and don’t pay more than a hundred fifty, and find some used tack somewhere, and if it rubs you raw there’s a lesson in it, it’s your ass, and you can feed your jailbirds pinto beans for the next fiscal year.”
“I’ll get them horses back. He’s got them up there somewheres,” Blue said. “How about I rent a horse and saddle from the livery barn for a few weeks?”
“At two dollars a day? Piracy. And who’s to say you’ll get any horses back? Who’s to say Jack Castle’s in the Territory?” The supervisor looked as if he were just stepping out of a two-holer. “Buy one horse and that’s it. You lose it and Barlow’s taking over. He’s got three, four horses, and he don’t lose them or get them shot.”
“Fine way to treat a man that’s given thirty years of his life to keeping the peace around here.”
One horse, anyway.
Blue headed for a certain boozy horse broker he knew, as crooked as he could get away with when dealing with widows and ministers but straight with Blue most of the time, and willing to dicker.
Smooth Eddie operated on the south side of Blankenship and always had a dozen or so nags in his string. Blue hiked over there, found the horses in a paddock, and wandered through. He wanted a look at all that horseflesh before Smooth began his sweet-talk and passing the bottle back and forth.
But Smooth Eddie saw him coming, and by the time Blue put a boot to the split-rail fence, Eddie was right there, lipping a skinny cigar.
“I’ll cut right to it, “ Blue said. “I need a horse and the county’s springing for only a hundred and a half, and that’s it. I want a three hundred dollar horse for half price, and he better move fast and keep on going all day, because that’s all I’ll buy.”
Eddie lipped his cigar. “I’ll sell you the rear half for that and give you a mortgage on the front half.”
“I don’t have time to waste.”
“Then you’ll end up picking a dog.”
“You don’t have dogs in your string.”
Smooth Eddie chortled. He eyed his herd and pointed at a red roan. “That one,” he said. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Nothing. He’s green and flighty. Needs a sheriff on him to settle down. Some Blue Smith authority.”
“How old?”
“Three, and started. Joe Kingsley started him.”
“That’s all I need, a horse I can’t control when I’m in a jackpot. How much for a blanket, saddle and bridle with him?”
“Two hundred puts you on that horse.”
Blue climbed onto the roan, walked, trotted, loped and galloped, liked the gelding even if he was half broke. Then he studied the legs and chest and stifles, looked for cracked hooves, checked the frogs and pasterns, ran a hand down each leg, lifted the horse’s lips, looked for worms, ran a hand along the withers looking for fistulas, studied the horse’s eye, which was gentle and bright, and he bought.
“Bill the county,” he said.
“I will, but you’ll just sign a little note saying if the county don’t cough up, you’re liable.”
Blue fumed and signed. He rode back into Blankenship liking the eager movement of the roan. This nag would take him to Castle up there in the mountains. Life wasn’t so bad.
He tied it to the jail hitchrail. Barlow was sitting on the bench outside, whittling.
“New nag?”
“Smooth Eddie’s best.”
Barlow laughed. “We’ll see.”
“I’m going fishing.”
“You been away. Mail piled up on your desk sky high, three, four letters I think, and a Monkey Ward catalogue. Two ladies of the night in the pen, got into a catfight, some dodgers you ain’t looked at, vouchers, and a killer’s loose.”
“That’s why I’m going fishing. This started at my fishing hole and I’ll end it there. Castle knows where to find me. He’s the one doing the man-hunting now.”
Barlow quit whittling. “You want help?”
“No, you just look after things. Check on the missus now and then.”
“When’ll you be back?”
“Tonight. I got to break in this strawberry horse. But I’m going out again tomorrow, and I’m going fishing every day until Castle comes snooping around, because he knows I’m there, and I’ll be waiting with a few surprises, and it’ll be over. It’s like reeling in a fat cutthroat, Carl.”
“Cutthroats can’t kill you,” he said, and spat.
Blue entered the gloomy office, ransacked it for a saddle sheath and an old shotgun, poured a few twelve-gauge buckshot cartridges into his pockets, and left the mess to Carl Barlow.
He stopped at his house long enough to collect his collapsible bamboo rod and reel and creel, and an ancient canvas vest loaded with pockets stuffed with hooky little flies, and then steered the strawberry toward the mountains. The morning’s heat was already oppressive and enervating, but Blue knew that some altitude would bring some cooler air. He was thinking about those fish, lazily lording over the fishing hole, staying put with an occasional flip of their fins, fish he hadn’t had time to catch for weeks now, fish just waiting for him, especially now with the water running clear after the spring runoff. “I’m coming, Castle,” he said, wondering why he said it when he was thinking about a private pool full of cutthroats.
The fishing hole was where it started and where it would end because Castle couldn’t leave it alone. Blue concentrated on the roan, giving the horse gentle instruction in neck reining, heel signals, knee signals. A young horse like that learned quick. He’d never be as good as old Hector, but he’d be good, and Blue figured he was lucky to get that sort of horseflesh out of Smooth Eddie.
The gelding took him up the narrow trails, and gradually Blankenship dropped behind him and the air turned sweet again. He paused at the crest of the wooded divide that sealed the fishing hole from the world, and studied the place from the shadows. The grasses shimmered in the noon sun. The creek rippled unperturbed. He watched mountain bluebirds flit. The waters of the hole looked deep and cold. The place was a trap. Castle could settle anywhere around the rim of that sunny basin and wait with a rifle. But that wasn’t Castle’s style. The punk would let Blue know first. Blue rode down the wooded trail until he burst into the meadowed bottoms fragrant with the scent of sun-hammered pines.
He picketed the strawberry roan close in, plucked the shotgun from its sheath, studied the old fishing hole, and knew he would catch a good string before riding back. If he boned and filleted them, Olivia would fry them for supper. Soon he had his rod assembled, a popper red-tailed fly on the line, and a place picked out, and the shotgun one step away. He was fishing for cutthroats and killers. Blue sat down at his favorite place, a rocky flat overlooking the deep and mysterious waters, and let the breezes wash over him. He peered into the dark pool. In just the right light he could see seven or eight feet down into that crystal water. There was Big Eye. He was sure of it, the great-grandfather of all trout, lazily eyeing Blue. He had caught Big Eye several times and always let him go, because he put up the best fight in all the holy and finny kingdom of fish. He could always spot Big Eye, who had abnormally large and black eyes, eyes different from any fish he had ever caught. And there he was, ready for a fight. Big Eye liked the fight as much as Blue, and half the time spit out the hook and flipped away, giving Blue a final contemptuous wiggle before vanishing into the deeps of that pool. “All right, come t
o me, Big Eye. What are you biting this hot day, eh?”
Blue stood, feeling the sun bake his back and neck, feeling the flexing rod in his hand, the long black line spun in England. He had gotten everything from England, where they knew all about trout. It was time to reel in Big Eye. He whipped his line until it soared, and whipped it back and out and then farther out until it dropped that brown-tailed fly right over Big Eye, right where he had always caught Big Eye. The monster didn’t even wait. He was up, out, clamping the fly in his hard jaws, and racing for the deep on Blue’s first cast, as if to tell the sheriff he had missed him. Blue’s reel sang, and the line raced down, down, down into that dark pool, and Blue let Big Eye run. Then it was over. The line went slack. Blue reeled it in, and found nothing on the end. He felt cheated. Big Eye was good for twenty minutes of sheer joy. He rummaged around in his vest, looking for a new leader and fly, and soon had himself in shape, but the afternoon was ruined. Big Eye was sulking down there, out of sight, and unwilling to come out and fight.
Chapter 20
The fishing hole wasn’t the same any more. Blue felt it. The meadows and sloping foothills looked exactly as they always did, virgin and unsullied. But scarcely twenty feet from where he cast his line into the mysterious water, he had found a stranger’s body with six bullet holes in it, a man casually murdered and dragged there so that the sheriff would not miss it and start after the killer. So the old hole wasn’t the same, and never would be, and Blue mourned. Paradise had been lost and would never return. He fished steadily as the sun traversed the heavens and headed toward the western ridges. He caught five fat trout, which lay in his creel. But it wasn’t the same. Whatever else Jack Castle had done, he had also murdered this Eden, and ruined one man’s most sacred corner of the world.
When the angle of the sun told him it was time to go, Blue reeled in his wet line and disassembled his rod and stored it on the strawberry roan. He gutted his fish and packed them in cold wet grass for the trip home. Olivia knew exactly how to salt and season and fry them, and they would have a fine trout fillet supper that night, as they often did. But it would never be the same, and he sorrowed.
Cutthroat Gulch Page 11
