by Steve Brewer
“I imagine I could,” Marlin replied. He wasn’t used to Stovall being so serious. “I’ll see you in about thirty minutes.”
Marlin got dressed, grabbed a traveler’s mug of coffee, and headed out the door. It wasn’t until he was halfway to Stovall’s small ranch that he remembered who Stovall’s neighbor was: Roy Swank. Maybe this would be the right time to pay Swank a visit and have a talk about Buck. But first things first.
Minutes later, Marlin swung through Stovall’s front gate, which had a sign that said, PEDDLERS AND MEDDLERS NOT WELCOME. Beneath that, someone had painted a crude rifle and written, WE DON’T CALL 911.
He parked by the beautiful rock home and saw Stovall come out the front door. The men greeted each other and Stovall got right to the point. “John, you and me have had a few run-ins, ain’t we?”
Marlin agreed that they had.
“But I’ve always thought you were a straight-shootin’ type … a good man,” Stovall said.
Marlin thanked him for those kind words. He was patient—he knew the redneck rock mason had something to tell him. It was best to let him do it at his own pace.
“Now, I’m wondering if I can tell you something … and keep it just between us. Sorta man-to-man.”
Marlin smiled. “Well, that all depends on what we’re talking about, Thomas. But I imagine you could probably tell me what you want to tell me without it getting out.”
“I’m not so worried about it getting out as I am about … getting in trouble.”
“For another game violation?”
“Possibly. But that’s not what you’re gonna be interested in.” Stovall took a deep breath. “Let’s say that I was out doing a little hunting—maybe a few days before the season was open—but I came across something darn peculiar … something you should know about.…”
Marlin was finally beginning to get a little impatient. “Thomas, I’m guessing you shot a deer out of season. So what else is new? Let’s hear what all this is leading up to.”
Stovall looked Marlin in the eye for a few seconds, making a decision. Finally he said, “Climb in my truck. Let me show you something.”
“It’s the damnedest thing I ever saw,” Stovall said. The two men were walking through thick woods near Stovall’s westernmost property line. The cedar trees were so dense, the atrophied lower branches raked the men’s skin as they passed by. Finally they broke through into an opening along an eight-foot gameproof fence. “I was watching the fenceline.…Right there’s where the deer come through. You can see where there’s a hole in Roy Swank’s fence.” Thomas winked at Marlin.
Cutting holes was a poacher tradition, a way of keeping animals moving through high fences. Since cutting fences is illegal, some poachers applied battery acid to the fence—and when it would deteriorate a year later, it looked like natural rusting. It was a unique trick introduced to the innovative poaching community by none other than Thomas Stovall.
“It was a big ol’ buck, a real wall-hanger,” Stovall said. “I think Swank keeps some of his best bucks in this pasture”— pointing to the gently rolling hills across the fenceline. “I was just setting under one of them cedars over there, using my thirty-thirty. It was only a sixty-yard shot.”
Stovall walked about ten yards and stood next to a heavily traveled deer path. “They wander onto my place at night, and then go back early morning.”
“I would, too, if I was fed the high-dollar stuff Swank buys,” Marlin joked.
Stovall smiled. “I mean to tell ya. His bill at the feed store beats my annual income. Anyway, he was heading back to Swank’s ranch right at sunup. I took a lung shot, but I think I popped him in the gut. He fell down for a second, then jumped up and ran back onto Swank’s place. I walked over here to check for blood,” Stovall said as he approached the deer path.
Marlin could see several deep deer tracks where the buck had accelerated out of the soft dirt. He also saw a few specks of blood, some semidigested grass, and a curious white patch.
Marlin knelt down and took a closer look. About two tablespoons of snow-white powder lay sprinkled on the ground.
Stovall said, “I got to tell you, John, in forty years of hunting, I’ve never seen anything like that. What do you think it is?”
Buck’s behavior all makes sense now, Marlin thought. If my hunches are right. ”I’m not sure exactly what it is,” Marlin said. “But I have a pretty good idea.”
12
BACK IN THE cruiser, Marlin’s adrenaline kicked in as he thought about nailing Roy Swank for good. And now he thought he had what he needed to get the job done. But first, he needed to find someone to test the white powder for him and see if his suspicions were correct. He couldn’t go to Sheriff Mackey—if he was involved, he’d make the evidence disappear faster than a cheeseburger at lunchtime.
Then Marlin thought of Bobby Garza, a good deputy and a man he knew he could trust. He’d have to set up a meeting with Garza and get his input. In any case, now was not the time to confront Swank, not till Marlin figured a few things out. So he went directly from Stovall’s ranch to Phil Colby’s house.
He pulled into the driveway, expecting to see Buck’s head pop up somewhere in the high grass. After all, nobody had been here in a few days, and the deer loved company.
But he didn’t see Buck.
Maybe he’s in the barn, Marlin thought. Colby always left the back door open a little so the deer could come and go. He also left high-protein feed in a bucket, away from other deer and varmints.
Marlin swung the barn’s front door open. Still no Buck.
He checked the bucket of feed. It hadn’t been touched.
Roy Swank was nervous. Just talking to Oscar on the phone made his palms sweat. Having the crazy Colombian right here in his den just about made him pee his pants. Nobody—from senators to presidents—had ever made Swank feel this uptight. Even in his discomfort, Swank couldn’t help but admire the man. He would have made a hell of a lobbyist.
Right now, Swank was squirming in an uneasy silence. Oscar’s last words had been: “What do you think we ought to do?” He said it as if he already knew the answer.
Seconds passed as Oscar’s eyes bore a hole through the back of Swank’s skull. Finally, Swank gave a weak shrug.
“I tell you, then,” Oscar said. “When you have a problem, you fine a way to eliminate that problem.”
Swank nodded. “But I don’t see as how we have a problem anymore.” He tried to sound confident. “We got the deer back, and Colby is in the hospital out cold. He probably won’t even remember the whole episode.”
Oscar had been sitting placidly in Swank’s chair, fingers steepled in front of him. Now he exploded to his feet and swept several items off the desktop. “You fool! Probably ees not good enough. What if he does remember? What then? Having the deer back means nothing if we have the DEA, the ATF, and the FBI on our asses!”
Oscar walked slowly around behind Swank. He paused in front of a large mirror and ran one hand over his slicked hair. Moments passed in silence.
Then Swank jumped involuntarily as he felt Oscar’s hands on his shoulders. Oscar leaned close to Swank’s right ear and whispered: “You and I are not so different. We both have beeg dreams. But there ees one thing that sets us apart, like day and night.” He squeezed Swank’s shoulders. “You will go to almost any length to attain your dream. But when you strip away your Americano boldness, the truth ees, the thought of blood scares you, deep in your heart.” Oscar stood straight again. Swank was still staring straight ahead. Oscar leaned down again. “But it excites me.”
Oscar came around the desk and sat back down in the chair.
Swank knew he had to speak—try to contain things before they got out of hand. “I’ve got an idea—one so simple I can’t believe I didn’t think of it earlier.” Swank chuckled and waited for Oscar to urge him on. Oscar simply stared at him.
Swank said, “Here’s what we should do. I’ll get Tim Gray—you haven’t met him, but he’s my
vet—I’ll get him to open up the buck and remove the heroin he musta missed last time.” Swank couldn’t remember the last time he had said that word. Normally he referred to it as “goods” or “merchandise,” somehow giving himself a sense of comfort by not directly mentioning the wares he was now peddling.
Oscar nodded. “Go on.”
“Then we give the deer back to Colby. It’s that simple. He wants the damn animal anyway. And once he has it—bingo—nobody’s breathing down our necks anymore.”
“What do we say about the scar on hees belly?”
“Hell, we just say it had a tumor or kidney stones or some such shit. Who’s to know better?”
Swank smiled broadly, revealing smoke-stained teeth, while Oscar sat in silence.
“It’ll be worth losing a trophy buck just so we can get back to business as usual,” Swank added.
Oscar placed his fingertips on either temple and closed his eyes, as if searching the recesses of his mind for divine inspiration. Swank listened to the ticking of the antique clock on the mantle. Funny, he had never noticed how loud it was before. Sounded like a miner deep in a tunnel, rhythmically picking away at hard rock walls.
Finally Oscar looked up. “Do eet tonight.”
“I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a long time, Barney,” John Marlin said. The two men were seated at Cisco’s Bar-B-Q in beautiful downtown Blanco, south of Johnson City. “Downtown” meant being within spitting distance of the only traffic light in town.
Barney Weaver was meticulously adding Sweet ‘n Low to his second glass of iced tea. He had already explained how he liked exactly two-thirds of a packet. Anything more made the whole glass “fouler than a boar hog’s armpits.”
Marlin sat across from him, learning more and more about this peculiar man by the minute. He had been surprised by how readily Barney had agreed to lunch. When Weaver entered the restaurant, wearing a backpack and looking like an escapee from the nuthouse in Big Spring, Marlin knew he should have arranged the meeting sooner. The man was wearing a camouflage jacket and red pants. That wasn’t too bad in itself, but they didn’t go too well with the foil hat. Barney said it was great for rainy days. In other words, he was the kind of character you needed to keep tabs on.
“There are a coupla things I want to discuss with you,” Marlin said, trying to catch Barney’s eye. He continued to stir his iced tea, as if the dissolved sweetener might convert back to solid form if he let his guard down for even a minute. “Barney?”
Marlin was a little embarrassed to do it, but he finally held his hand out over the table and snapped his fingers. Barney looked up.
“I know you and Louise had a good thing when you were together….”
“Did she say that?”
Marlin paused. “Well, not in so many words….”
Barney fidgeted with his teaspoon.
“But the thing is, she’s on her own now. To do whatever she pleases.”
Barney looked up at Marlin and nodded his head.
Marlin continued: “If she decides to get married again someday, that’s really not anybody’s business except her own.”
“Hell, I couldn’t agree more.”
“I also don’t mind telling you that she and I don’t have any plans of that kind….”
Barney smiled and looked Marlin straight in the eye. “Good for you, bud. I shoulda done the same thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Hey, it’s like the old saying—why buy the cow when the milk’s free?”
Marlin wasn’t thrilled with the remark, but he let it pass.
“There’s another thing … Louise’s ex-husband … he’s not the Bill Gates that you think he is.”
“Oh, I done figured that out.”
“You did?”
“Yep, but a man’s gotta be sure, ain’t he? Can’t pass up a gravy train like that.”
Okay, Marlin thought, we’re done here. Maybe ol’ Barney is off the deep end, but he seems pretty harmless. Only problem, now he’d have to sit through dinner with him. Marlin cursed himself for not ordering just coffee.
Barney continued: “A man’s gotta have an angle, know what I mean?”
“Not really,” Marlin said, groaning inside.
“Take a guy like me, out there every day, pouring concrete. Hell, it ain’t a bad livin’, but it ain’t gonna make me rich, is it?”
“I guess not, but there are other things…”
Barney interrupted: “So I got to keep an eye out for anything that might better my position, as they say.” Weaver smiled like he had just learned his stock had doubled.
He reached for the backpack next to him and began digging around in it. “Let me show you something….”
Marlin started to get a little nervous and realized that he had placed his hand on his pistol.
Barney pulled a Polaroid camera out of the bag. “This here could be just the ticket. Picked it up the other day at Wal-Mart in Marble Falls. Thirty-two bucks. See, I’m gonna take some pictures of a certain celebrity who I been seein’ around town.” Barney glanced around the restaurant furtively. “Did you know some of those newspapers like the National Enquirer and even People magazine will pay top dollar for a good photo?”
Marlin wasn’t sure what to say, so he just nodded.
“You know who I saw?” Barney leaned closer. “Antonio Banderas. You know, that Meskin or Cuban guy from Zorro? Good flick. I don’t really know what all the ladies see in that string-bean, but there’s somethin’. So what I plan to do is, foller him around, and if I can pop one or two good shots of him without his britches, I could make a small fortune. Maybe I could make a name for myself, move out to California, do it full-time.”
The idea of Barney relocating certainly appealed to Marlin.
Barney got quiet as the waitress approached with the men’s suppers. Large platters of beef ribs and sliced brisket, with sides of potato salad and pinto beans. Barney pointed to his glass. “Could you bring another glass of tea? I fouled that one all up.”
“You what?” The waitress looked confused.
“I fouled it up. Wrong balance of sweetner.”
The waitress looked at Barney and then at Marlin, who could only smile.
Antonio Banderas. Give me a break.
When Marlin got home, he had two messages on his answering machine. He punched the button….
“Marlin, this is Roy Swank. Listen, that ol’ buck showed back up over at my place somehow. Maybe with the rut coming on, he just wandered back to his home territory. But I’ll tell ya, he sure is a lot of trouble…and I feel kinda bad with Colby in the hospital and all. So I’m figuring on just giving him back when Colby gets back on his feet. I’ll just haul him over in one of my trailers later this week and let him go out there around Colby’s place again. Put an end to all this bad blood between us. That’s where he belongs anyways. So I guess I’ll talk to one a y’all later.”
Marlin was elated and pissed off at the same time. Just what in the hell was Swank up to? At least he knew where Buck was now, though. Then the machine played the second message….
“Hi John, this is Becky, uh, Nurse Cameron, at the hospital. Just wanted to call and tell you some great news. Your friend Phil came out of his coma this evening….Didn’t I tell you it wouldn’t be long? He ate about ten pounds of our nasty hospital food, so you know he must be doing pretty well….Anyway, he’s asleep now, but I’m sure he’ll be ready for visitors in the next day or two…. Tomorrow’s my day off, so I won’t be here…but maybe I’ll see you again sometime….I’d like that. By the way, my home phone number is 559-0091, in case you have any questions…or anything. ‘Bye.”
Marlin almost tripped going to get a pencil off the bar.
13
RED AND BILLY Don hadn’t been to Austin in several months. Sure, they made a weekly trip to the western outskirts of the growing city to pick up lumber or other supplies they couldn’t find in Johnson City or Blanco. But they usually stayed away from do
wntown.
Tonight was different. Now they each had ten thousand bucks in cash to play with.
They had gone east from Johnson City on Highway 290, through Oak Hill and all the way to Austin, then began a slow northward cruise up Lamar Boulevard. They were in Red’s 1972 Ford pickup, a vehicle that would have been right at home in Austin twenty years ago, but now was greatly outnumbered by shiny Mercedes sedans, BMWs, sport utility vehicles, and other late-model foreign cars.
“Damn, this town has changed,” Red said. “ ‘Member when we used to cruise into the Soap Creek Saloon over in Westlake? And the Armadilla over on Barton Springs?”
Billy Don nodded as he drained the last drops from a Lone Star longneck. He had noticed that a couple of six-packs helped numb the pain of the snakebite he had received two days earlier. Plus, the swelling had gone down considerably. The horse-doctor had given him a sling, but Billy Don had discarded that after Red called him a sissy.
“Now there ain’t nothing here but Yankees and for’ners,” Red continued. “Sucked the life right out of this town. I been to Houston, and I’m tellin’ ya, this ain’t much different no more.”
Billy Don belched in agreement.
Red pulled from his own beer. “Buncha high-tech geeks everywhere come over from California, all going on and on about the Innernet….hell, I don’t see the value in it. You wanna talk to someone, why not just call ‘em on the phone?”
“There’s porn,” Billy Don said.
“Wazzat?
“From what I hear, you can dial up pitchers of naked ladies right there in your living room. Even Playboy magazine.”
“Well, hell,” Red said. He’d have to think that over.
Moments later, Red tapped on the brakes. “Hey, lookee there, McLeod’s Guns is open late,” he said as he swung into the parking lot. A banner hung over the double front doors that said: HUNTERS, START THE SEASON WITH A BANG! ”What say we go inside and have a look around?”
As Red climbed from the truck, he patted his camouflage jacket for the hundredth time that night, smiling at the deck of hundred-dollar bills tucked away safely in the pocket. He’d always wanted a high-quality firearm—maybe a Colt or a Smith & Wesson—but none of that foreign stuff. Keep the money right here in the U.S. But he had to admit, those Glocks and Rugers were well-made, he had to give ‘em that.
