by Neil Mcmahon
But I also started getting glimpses into my restlessness. It was a longing, an ache that everybody experienced at some point. Boxing, like the religious piety I'd felt as a boy, was a means I'd used to try to cope with it. Its source lay deeper. I realized that the reason I'd been so drawn to the Indians playing the stick game up at Rocky Boy that night was my sense of how close to it they were.
Still, I couldn't identify that hunger, let alone figure out how to satisfy it in a real and long-term fashion. The only thing I could think to do was to keep my options open. I held to the naive conviction that some event of critical importance to my life was out there on the horizon, and if I settled into practicality and security, I might miss it. That was the real reason I'd broken up with Sarah Lynn, who would have given me everything most men would ask.
I got out of Stanford with a degree in history, not good for much except more school, and no particular focus. I decided to try journalism, with a vague notion that wide exposure to new things might help me find the direction I was looking for. I was able to get into a graduate program at USC.
But by then I was seriously involved with one of my former classmates, who had started law school at UC Davis, near Sacramento. The long-distance relationship was a strain, and so was Los Angeles, especially with trying to live there poor. After a year at USC, I left and took a job at the Sacramento Guardian. The position and salary were both well below what I'd have made if I'd gotten my master's degree, but I was ready for a change and a steady paycheck. I figured I'd give it a year or two, then go back and finish school.
I never did. Emilie and I got married-Stanford blessed the union between two of its own in traditional fashion, by bold-printing our names in alumni newsletters-and new factors entered the equation. Her father was a wealthy business executive, her mother a socialite. For a wedding gift, they put the down payment on a house, which, privately, made me very uncomfortable. It was no secret that they considered my profession undignified and my earning potential a joke, and they wished I'd grow up and go to law or business school myself. The pressure mounted as time passed, with Emilie joining the chorus.
I didn't have any interest in law or business or anything of the kind, but that wasn't why I dragged my heels. It wasn't out of love for my work, either-I'd lost my illusions early on. Mostly, I covered local-interest topics like Rotary conventions, bureaucratic incompetence, and couples who preserved historic street signs. Occasionally juicier things happened along-an unusual crime, political scandals-but even those always came down to the same sordid underpinnings.
There wasn't any physical punch to shock me into awareness this time-just the growing sense that I'd let myself get put in a box, and even helped to build it. It was a good box, a lot better than most people ever got, but I was having more and more trouble breathing, like the air inside was running out. Almost worse was the crushing sense that the real problem was me-that I didn't belong anywhere and I was blighting everything around me. Discomfort edged into quiet panic. I started drinking too much, jacking the family disapproval level way up.
One night Emilie and I went to bed without touching, as had become common. We didn't talk, either, just lay there side by side awake. I knew she was thinking the same thing I was. Our marriage had been based on our trying to please each other and do what the world expected of us, but now we'd grown, or retreated, into who we really were. Whatever connection there once had been was between two different people.
But I saw another truth alone. I'd allowed myself to believe that with all the external changes, I'd embarked on a new life. In fact, I had only caved in to the very thing I'd avoided with Sarah Lynn. The trappings were different, that was all.
I had just turned thirty then. Not long afterward, I took a solo vacation to Montana, thinking I'd refresh myself for a few days. It was the same time of year as now. The plane arrived just at dusk, coming in from the southwest over a carpet of green mountain wilderness.
Madbird picked me up at the airport and took me out drinking, a great night of cruising the bars and running into old friends. He let me know that he'd started working with a crew he liked a lot, and they could use a framer.
Within another month, my marriage and my journalistic career were both over, and I was back in Montana growing calluses on my hands again. I hadn't left since.
Like memories of Celia, that old restlessness had faded to the point where I'd barely thought about it for years. In a way that was a great relief. But I had never come any closer to resolving it, and in another way, it was like the death of an enemy-you lost a powerful force that had been driving you.
Now I was pushing forty.
20
I wasn't in any hurry to get home to my dark, empty cabin and burnt lumber, so I took a roundabout way, drifting along the country roads and crossing the Missouri at the York Bridge.
I'd reached the northeast rim of Canyon Ferry Lake when headlights flashed at me out of the darkness ahead-a double flick that was repeated a couple of seconds later. The vehicle was a few hundred yards farther on, down near the shoreline, not moving. Most likely it was a signal for help. That area lay between a couple of campgrounds, a half-mile-plus stretch of brush and gullies that was off-road, but that teenagers often drove into at night. There were little beaches where you could skinny-dip, cliffs you could dive off, plenty of places to drink or steam up your windows. A lot of the ground was sandy and soft, and getting stuck was easy.
It was after one o'clock in the morning now and my mood was far from helpful. But the headlights kept flashing and I decided I'd better at least make sure that whoever was there was OK. I was probably the only person who would come along this way before morning, and the night had gone cold.
I slowed and turned off the highway onto a dirt track that led in there. I knew the landscape well from my own teen years, for the same reasons as the kids nowadays. I was still edgy, and I cut my headlights and stayed in the brush, coming up on top of a little knoll. I got out quietly and walked to where I could get a look.
The other vehicle was maybe sixty yards away now, a little below me on a slope toward the lake. The moon was dropping behind the Rockies, but there was enough light for me to see that it was a dark-colored Jeep, with a man pacing around beside it.
Kirk Pettyjohn drove a black Jeep just like it. And his wiry form and pale hair were unmistakable.
That sure put a new spin on things.
He was staring in my direction, his head swiveling with jerky meth agitation. He'd probably heard my engine and was trying to spot me. Anger and wariness rose up in me together. My first thought was that Balcomb had sent him, maybe to extort the photos I'd claimed to have. He wasn't carrying his rifle, although he could have had it stashed within easy reach or had somebody else hiding.
But it didn't make sense that he'd wait at a place like this and flag me down-taking the chance that I'd just drive on past or even have a gun of my own-instead of nailing me when I wasn't expecting it.
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 de
cided 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 ha
d 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.
